Class 

Book 



THE PHILOSOPHY 

OF 

NATUEAL THEOLOGY. 



THE PHILOSOPHY 

OF 

NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



AN ESSAY, 

IN CONFUTATION OF THE SCEPTICISM 
OF THE PRESENT DAY, 

WHICH OBTAINED A PRIZE AT OXFORD, NOV. 26TH, 1 872. 



BY THE REVEREND 



WILLIAM JACKSON, M.A, F.S.A., 

FORMERLY FELLOW OF WORCESTER COLLEGE, 
AUTHOR OF " POSITIVISM," "RIGHT AND WRONG," 
" THE GOLDEN SPELL," ETC. 



LONDON: 
HODDER AND STOUGHTON, 

27, PATERNOSTER ROW. 

MDCCCLXXIV. 



J3 



XJnW. of Mick. 
NOV 2 5 I 933 



TO THE MOST NOBLE 

THE MARQUIS OF SALISBURY, 

CHANCELLOR 
OF THE 
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, 
&C, &C, &C, 

the following pages are, 
with his lordship's permission, 
respectfully inscribed - 
by their Author. 



From the " Oxford University Gazette " of June lUh, 1870. 



PRIZE ESSAY. 

Cikcumstances have induced an Individual, who wishes to remain 
unknown, to offer a Prize of £100, to be competed for by Members 
of the University of Oxford of not less standing than Master of Arts, 
and by any above that standing, for the best Essay in confutation of 
the Materialism of the present day by arguments derived from Evi- 
dences of Intelligence, Design, Contrivance, and Adaptation of Means 
to Ends, in the Universe, and especially in Man considered in his 
Moral Nature, his Religious Aptitudes, and his Intellectual Powers ; 
and in all Organic Nature. The observation also to be made and 
supported in the course of the Essay that the Will and Wisdom of 
the Creator may be a sufficient cause for deviations from the established 
course of nature, and that the Free-will of man, in things within his 
power and influence, may be a cause of similar deviations. 

It is desired that all arguments used against Materialism should be 
independent of those of Hegel, and of what is called the Spiritual Philo- 
sophy, which had its rise in Germany. 

A period of two years will be allowed after the Public Announcement 
of the subject before the competing Essays will be required to be sent in 
to the Judges : and it is a condition of the competition that the Copy- 
right of the successful Essay shall be the property of -the Donor of the 
Prize ; but that if published, the profits (if any) shall belong to the 
Writer. 

The Very Reverend the Dean of St. Paul's, the Regius Professor of 
Divinity, and the Rev. C. Pritchard, Savilian Professor of Astronomy, 
have consented to act as Judges. 

Essays must be sent to the Registrar of the University on or before the 
12th of June, 1872. The Essays are to be distinguished by mottoes, the 
writer's name being sent at the same time in a sealed envelope, in the 
manner prescribed for the Chancellor's Prizes. 

F. K. LEIGHTON, 

Vice-Chancellor. 

All Souls College, 
June 13, 1870. 



After the decease of Dean Mansel the last clause but one of 
the above notice was thus modified in the Gazette for Dec. 
5th, 1871 :— 

The Very Reverend the Dean of Canterbury, the Regius Professor 
of Divinity, and the Rev. C. Pritchard, Savilian Professor of Astronomy, 
have consented to act as Judges. 

The following announcement appeared in the Gazette for 
Nov. 26th, 1872 :— 

PRIZE ESSAY. 

The Judges appointed to award a Prize of £100 offered for the 
best Essay in confutation of Materialism have adjudged the Prize 
to the Rev. W. Jackson, M.A., F.S.A., late Fellow of Worcester 
College. 

H. G. LIDDELL, 

Vice-Chancellor. 

November 25, 1872. 

In a letter dated Dec. 26th, 1872, the Donor of the Prize 
surrendered any claim that he might have upon the Copyright 
of the Essay, and requested the Author to proceed with its 
publication. 



PEEFACE. 



The Essay now published is the expansion of a thin volume 
by the present writer, which was printed more than four years 
ago* Natural Theology, considered as a science, had been 
at that time pronounced extinct and impossible by very 
eminent authorities. From this decision I felt myself con- 
strained to differ; and thought it worth while to put on 
record a plea for what appeared to me an unduly neglected 
branch of Philosophy. 

Such contempt of a pursuit possessing so many claims on 
the favourable attention of educated minds, seemed a fact 
to be accounted for in some way. After considerable thought, 
I ventured on asserting that the method latterly employed 
in treatises on this once popular science, furnished the true 
reason of its decline and fall. That method I could not avoid 
condemning as both inadequate and suicidal. 

The publication of my Sermon in 1870, was- followed by a 
number of letters and critiques from scientific and literary 
men. Not one amongst them alleged any worse fault than 
novelty against the matter of my book, and undue compres- 
sion against its manner. Many of their remarks were of 
the most encouraging description, and affected me deeply by 
reason of the celebrity of their writers, whom I had previously 
known only by their works and their reputation. One most 

* Right and "Wrong. A Sermon upon the Question Under what Con- 
ditions is a Science of Natural Theology possible ? Preached before the 
University of Oxford, March 6, 1870. 



X 



PREFACE. 



generous letter from the Author who, above all others, had 
called my own intellectual life into active energy, excited, in 
my mind, a warmth of feeling absolutely indescribable. 

When, therefore, a Prize on this subject was offered for 
adjudication subject to the appointment of my own University, 
I felt glad to embrace an occasion which might be called in the 
truest sense an " Opportunity." "What I have produced is to 
be found in the following pages. When engaged in writing 
them, it was my most anxious wish and endeavour to be 
honest: to advocate what I thought and still think true, 
without disguising the difficulties of my own conclusion, or 
assailing its antagonists by gratuitous insinuations or unfair- 
nesses of any sort. Should such a meanness appear, I would 
earnestly desire the leaf on which it is printed to be torn 
from my book. 

The delays which have befallen these pages since they were 
first sent to press in the former half of 1873, have caused 
much regret to both author and publishers. Our troubles 
began with a singular misadventure to a quantity of MS. ; 
which, together with other circumstances, delayed printing 
till after the time originally fixed for publication. The next 
season was lost in consequence of severe domestic affliction. 
Those of my readers who have ever gone into print, will most 
readily commiserate the anxiety caused by such unlooked for 
disappointments. 

The ensuing line of argument was suggested to my mind 
when a young Oxonian, in consequence of circumstances with 
which it is needless to trouble my readers. What I then 
thought its special strength, lay in the point of its combining 
two totally different kinds of proof : — one, drawn from a survey 
of the world we live in, — the other, from what is nearer to 
ourselves — the moral truth given us by our personal conscious- 
ness. I also thought that any particular weakness alleged 



PREFACE. 



xi 



against one proof, could not be incident to the other; and, 
therefore, that since both lines of evidence, (kept apart while 
under examination), met at last in one and the same result, 
my inquiry had arrived at a demonstrably certain conclusion. 
At the same time, I could not but feel a wholesome distrust of 
my reasonings on a subject, which, though often discussed, had 
never, as I then believed, been looked at exactly from my own 
point of view. 

Somewhat later in life, I learned from Paley's commentators - 
and continuators, that the attack and defence of Natural 
Theology had for years been conformed to the position taken 
up by the Archdeacon, so far at least as the popular science of 
this country was concerned. But the sceptical tactics of Hume 
shewed me a much wider plan of assault ; and in studying his 
great German antagonist I saw that a double line of defence 
had been contemplated by him. I have since observed that 
no part of Kant's philosophy is less commonly known to 
English readers than his method and results in those most 
priceless of his critical investigations, the treatises forming a 
groundwork of Moral Science. As may at once be supposed, 
the discovery that I really had a sort of sympathiser in Kant, 
was the greatest possible encouragement to my mind. 

Yet there remained a very heavy discouragement. Evidently, 
any one who should try to pursue two very separate but 
convergent lines of reasoning, must undergo a most toilsome 
task, and one little likely to be performed without long and 
continued effort. And, harder yet to answer was the question 
next following : Who will read your patiently obtained results, 
to say nothing of the collateral topics which must in logical 
fairness be argued by the way ? After all, the inevitable 
drawback to Natural Theology lies in the fact that, in order 
to be held a valid science, it must necessarily become a 
complex one. 

This last difficulty remains my chiefest apprehension still. 



xii 



PEE FACE. 



Neither in the Essay itself, nor yet in the additions made to 
it, have I introduced any one point which it seemed permissible 
to omit with justice to the real issue. Yet I dare not hope that 
many eyes, except those of the practised student, will easily 
perceive how germane to that issue are several among the 
subjects discussed. One class of thinkers will, however, 
welcome the whole of these inquiries ; and this class contains 
the earnest men for whom above all others I have written. 

The amount of MS. sent to the Registrar was much less in 
compass than the present volume. But Notes and Illustrations 
were intended from the first, and, had there existed a doubt as 
to their propriety, it would have been at once removed by the 
counsel of competent advisers. The risks attaching to the 
Essay in its smaller shape were said to be two i (1) An 
evident appearance of unwilling brevity, and (2) a possible 
charge of novel thought, bordering on paradox. In attempting 
to overcome these obstacles to favourable attention, I have 
pursued the following course : — 

The text of the Essay is printed as originally written, with 
only a very few verbal changes for the sake of improved 
clearness. A number of foot-notes belonging to its first draft, 
remain distinguished by the ordinary marks of reference* 

In reperusing the text, I set myself to consider how many 
sympathisers I could find. The best answer to any possible 
charge of Paradox, seemed to be a roll-call of thinkers who, 
for their own purposes, have asserted positions more or less 
approaching those I had attempted to maintain. The number 
of auxiliaries I have thus succeeded in assembling, is, I confess, 
a matter of considerable self-gratulation. Yet, I do not appeal 
to such opinions as authorities, in any other sense than so far 

* All citations made in the original draft, or in the foot-notes belonging 
to it, have been revised and altered to suit later editions of the authorities 
cited. Thus there are several extracts from books which may appear to 
be recent publications, but are, in fact, authorized rifaccimenti. 



PREFACE. 



xiii 



forth as they are the decisions of experts in different provinces 
of knowledge. In whatever concerns his own department, 
each scientific worker has assuredly a right to be heard. The 
weight of confirmation thus given to my own previous results, 
is enhanced by the fact that most of the authors cited, pursued 
different objects from mine, and wrote without any bias favour- 
able to Natural Theology. Respecting more than one of them, 
I feel inclined to repeat the ancient adage, " My antagonist has 
become my helper." 

The Quotations themselves have been divided into separate 
classes. The greatest number illustrate particular expressions, 
sentences, and paragraphs. These are arranged as foot-notes 
on the several pages of Text, and are referred to by the small 
letters of the alphabet. Others, explaining or confirming 
principles, of general importance to the argument, have been 
distinguished by capital letters, and placed at the end of the 
chapters to which they appertain. With this latter division 
are classed a third set of extracts, which aim at expounding 
certain special thoughts, and opening out to the real student 
useful paths of prolonged investigation. 

One circumstance connected with the Additional Notes, is 
alluded to at the bottom of page 27. Originally, I had made 
only a few citations from thoroughly sceptical writers. But, 
against this plan were urged the following objections. (1.) In 
arguing questions of all kinds, definite points are present to the 
mind of every disputant, and against them he directs his argu- 
ment. His expressions are always antithetic to these points, 
and should they be left in the shadow, all antithesis is lost, and 
the real force of the argument obscured. Sometimes it is even 
mistaken ; — a truth which may be illustrated by comparing the 
positions of great leaders in politics or theology with the posi- 
tions occupied by their disciples. The former always speak by 
way of antithesis, — the latter seldom construe their leaders' 
words antithetically. Hence, the disciples never fail to outrun 



xiv 



PREFACE. 



their teachers. Antithesis is in truth a verbal counterpoise ; 
and where it disappears, balance is not seldom overthrown. 
Thus, said my advisers, your reasoning must necessarily suffer 
by a general loss of clear definition. Again, (2) they con- 
tinued ; — Since the time when you began your Essay, Scepticism 
in general, Materialism and Mechanism in particular, or, to 
speak briefly, the various denials of Theism, have ceased to be 
subjects on which reticence is feasible. An Address of Mr. 
Gladstone's delivered in a room, and spoken to a company of 
youths, soon became world-wide ; it has been, and will be> 
read, quoted, and commented on, wheresoever the English 
language is understood. One daily newspaper attractively 
written, devotes many of its clever pages to making known 
in a forensic manner the many different phases of sceptical 
opinion. And some religious journals explain, with complete 
freedom, what the disbeliefs are which they consider most 
reprehensible. Reticence, therefore, is simply thrown away. 
Some may desire to see it practised towards young people, but 
such " economizers " are, in effect, theoretical. They forget 
that the Battle of Thought comes to educated young minds 
along with the Battle of Life; and woe to the unprepared 
either way ! They become, one and all, bewildered. 

These reasons have satisfied my own judgment up to a 
certain point. I have consequently added such quotations 
from sceptical authors, as seemed desirable for the purpose of 
limiting my several positions with antithetic distinctness ; a 
kind of definition which I admit to be the most distinct of all. 
And to these extracts I have appended some others, plainly 
expressing the conclusions which the opponents of Theism 
ought to reach, provided their views are carried out with fair- 
ness and consistency. Conclusions of this kind can only be 
obtained from Sceptics themselves. In what are called " logical 
consequences " put by an author into the mouth of his adver- 
saries, I, for one, have no confidence whatever. To draw such 



PREFACE, 



xv 



inferences and glory in their wrong-headedness, is like invent- 
ing both sides of a controversial dialogue, defeating the party- 
destined to defeat, and then laying claim to a philosophic 
victory. Or, we may take the reverse supposition. A writer 
is too honest for such ill-gotten triumph. This same quality 
of candour will, most probably, induce him to put the case he 
opposes in a light so advantageous, as to throw fresh doubt 
upon his own. 

If, then, I have erred in over-quoting upon these accounts, I 
cannot plead that the error is committed unadvisedly. 

It seems right to say, that, in mustering auxiliaries, I found 
the best friends to my argument were - the most truly philo- 
sophic Biologists. It would indeed be strange and sad, should 
the genuine leaders of thought in any among the Natural 
Sciences be reckoned real adversaries of Natural Theology. 
But, in order to convey an exact impression to the reader's 
mind, I must beg him to peruse, in connection with this state- 
ment, the note on Materialism appended to Chapter III. ; and, 
more particularly, its concluding pages. Towards the hybrid 
class mentioned p. 246, I cannot help entertaining a sentiment 
the reverse of complimentary. 

To several distinguished persons who have bestowed upon 
this undertaking the aids of advice or sympathy, I offer a 
tribute of respectful gratitude. In one particular they will, I 
hope, think their kindness not utterly thrown away; since, 
unlike many recipients of good counsel, I have followed the 
opinions given me. It is with a deep solemnity of emotion, 
I thus venture on recording my heartfelt indebtedness. One, 
who was glad that words of his had helped me, now adorns 
no longer the noblest of assemblies by his eloquence. To my 
personal sorrow, he will not cast a glance on the pages over 
which his favour threw a ray of encouragement. 

That same last change, half-sceptical yet whole-earnest 
Reader, awaits both thee and myself. To thee, I am no more 

b 



xvi 



PREFACE. 



than the unseen utterer of certain thoughts, nourished through 
a period of blended hope and anxiety. It is now thine, to 
take unto thyself such reasonings as may fairly lay claim to 
some serious consideration. It is mine to accept the mixed 
consequences of their utterance ; — the kindness and contempt 
which follow believing advocacy always. Through all, and 
above all, there will remain with me — and perchance with 
thee also — the sense of a new Responsibility. 

These two shares in this slight book on the largest of sub- 
jects, belong in a fashion to earnest reader and anxious author 
for the time present. Soon they will be ours, and not ours. 
As days pass by, thought and utterance will bring less to both 
of us. We shall both have tinctured our lives more deeply 
with the Divine, or the Not-Divine ; we shall both have sealed 
the secret fountains of our hearts, in readiness for the Grave 
and its inevitable Futurities. 



" Natural Theology attempts to demonstrate the exist- 
ence of a personal First Cause, supreme Reason, and 
Will. The relations of mankind towards such a Being, 
are called natural religion. 



We look upon the starry heavens and say, as man 
creates within his own soul, and gives to airy nothing a 
thought, a name, a purpose, and a reality, so Almighty 
God created the Divine poem of this universal frame ; 
His will is its substance, His majestic thought and 
purpose shine out in its adornment, and we — we are 
hidden in the hollow of His hand. Every marvel of 
the visible raises our sense of the infinite variety and 
beauty of the invisible, until, attracted by Him Who is 
the first mover of the outward and the inward alike, 



PREFACE. 



xvii 



we make of this wonderful orb we tread upon a solid 
ground of support from which to mount, to fly to God 
and be at rest." 

These paragraphs are taken from the Appendix to my little 
volume on Natural Theology alluded to in the beginning of 
this Preface. They were intended as comments on the words 
with which the Sermon itself concluded : — 

" I have only to add that time could not permit my 
carrying this fruitful subject beyond its obscure and 
dry first principles. There is a brighter district of 
thought, an upland territory, as it were, rising towards 
our highest inheritance ; a border country where 
Natural Theology melts into Spiritual Religion, and 
where the true offspring of God learn the lineaments 
of their Father's divine love. I turn with regret from 
this land of living light." 

Such, then, were the feelings with which I could not help 
regarding the scientific limits of Natural Theology. I felt it 
nothing less than a disappointment to traverse the paths of 
positive fact and argument, and to close just at the very point 
where the human head gains a response from the human heart. 
It seemed like the task of a landscape painter, who, after 
depicting successive plains made shadowy by tangled brush- 
wood and dark forest-growth, should be compelled to lay down 
his pencil, and forbear transferring to his canvas the beautiful 
downs and sun-lighted hills overlooking those more obscure 
regions. Compared with the painter's regrets, were mine, I 
asked, less natural? The attributes of Deity already dwelt 
upon through the chain of my argument, were not only fitted 
to bring His existence home to Reason, but also to move 
earnest spirits by a strong sense of elevated hopes and duties, 



xviii 



PREFACE. 



devotion and aspiration. These religious sentiments might 
have yielded the purest lights of my landscape. All that had 
gone before seemed more negative than affirmative ; — rather 
to have been sketched in neutral tints than in radiant and 
glowing colours. 

A similar feeling of deep concern attended the conclusion 
of the present Essay ; increased by an inevitable thought that 
the reiterated disappointment seemed likely to be a disappoint- 
ment always. It was, therefore, a very great gratification to 
find in the honour of an election to the Bampton Lectureship 
for 1875, the possibility of adding a crown and completion to 
all my foregone work. The scheme of these Lectures enables 
me to treat of Natural Religion; to penetrate the upland 
territory, the border country where Man may view, as he 
walks heavenwards, the lineaments of his Father's Divine 
ove. 

Before this time next year, I may, therefore, hope to have 
realized my purpose. The volume of Bampton Lectures for 
1875, may then have become the appropriate conclusion of 
this present book. 

Oxford, 

Nov., 1874. 



CONTENTS. 



I. — Introductory : Motives of Essay — Division 

into Chapters — Method of Study — Con- 
silient Proofs . . . . 1 — 18 
Additional Notes and Illustrations . 18 — 39 

II. — Philosophy of Design : Hostile Criticisms 

examined — Explanations and Restate- 
ments . . . . 41 — 82 
Additional Notes and Illustrations . 83 — 138 

III. — Conditions of Human Knowledge : Its Dis- 

abilities and First Principles — Idealism 
— Positivism — Materialism — We must 

accept ultimate truths . . . 139 181 

Additional Notes and Illustrations . 182 — 248 

IV. — Beliefs of Reason : Principle of Induction 

— Theism — Confirmations and Illustra- 
tions ..... 249—289 
V. — Production and its Law : Conditions of 
Activity — Will and Reason in Contrast 
with Materialism and Mechanism — Crea- 
tive Mind characterised by visible Pro- 
ducts . . . . 291—348 

Additional Note .... 349 
VI. — Causation : Limits of Physical Law — The 

Beginning — Cause and Will — Miracles 351 — 373 
VII. — Responsibility : Right and Wrong — A 
Future State — Supreme Will and Per- 
sonality — Possible Relations of the 
Divine Being with Mankind — Expecta- 
tion of Supernatural Aids to Kiiowledge 
and Practice — The Balance . . 375 — 396 

L'Envoy ..... 396—398 



LIST .OF 

ADDITIONAL NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE 

The Eight Honourable W. E. Gladstone and others on Modern 

Scepticism . . . . . . .19 

On Corruption of the Judgment by misdirected Moral Senti- 
ments .......... 28 

Special Pleading in History and Morals ..... 29 

The Method employed throughout this Essay . . . .31 

On the Effect of Consilient Proofs 37 

The abstract reasonings involved in Natural Theology . . 83 
On the phrase " Design implies a Designer" . . .98 
Hume on the Analogies of Art and Nature .... 101 
The Pantheistic consequences charged upon Physical Specula- 
tions 103 

The extent and divisions of the Science of Natural Theology . 104 

On Teleology . 107 

Account of some theories respecting our Personal Identity . 182 
Helmholtz, Popular Lectures on Recent Progress of the Theory 

of Vision . . . . . . . .190 

Helmholtz on Specialties of Sensibility . . . . .199 

Popular account of Pure Idealism with critical remarks . . 204 
On the Relations of Fact and Theory . . . . .215 

On the " Unknowable " 217 

Mr. J. S. Mill as an Independent Moralist . . . .223 
Archebiosis, or Spontaneous Generation .... 226 

On Materialism . 237 

The Doctrine of Chances applied to the Structural Develop- 
ment of the Eye 349 



THE 



PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



" Finis vitae in primis noscendus est, ut ad eura actiones omnes dirigere 
valeamus ; non minus quam naviganti portus ad quern deveniat ante omnia 
statuendus." 

Ficinus in Platonis Philebum, Cap. I. 



CHAPTER, I. 
INTRODUCTORY, 



' ' Flower in the crannied wall, 

I pluck you out of the crannies ; — 
Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, 
Little flower — but if I could understand 
What you are, root and all, and all in all, 
I should know what God and man is." 

Tennyson. 

" I have written under the conviction that no Philosophy of the 
Universe can satisfy the minds of thoughtful men which does not deal 
with such questions as inevitably force themselves on our notice, re- 
specting the Author and the Object of the Universe ; and also under the 
conviction that every Philosophy of the Universe which has any con- 
sistency, must suggest answers, at least conjectural, to such questions. 
No Cosmos is complete from which the question of Deity is excluded ; 
and all Cosmology has a side turned towards Theology."— Whewell, Phi- 
losophy of Discovery, Preface, p. vi. 

"All science is but the intercalation, each more comprehensive than 
that which it endeavours to explain, between the great Primal Cause and 
the ultimate effect." — Professor Allman's Address to the British Associa- 
tion at Bradford, 1873. 

" Glory about thee, without thee ; and thou fulfillest thy doom, 
Making Him broken gleams, and a stifled splendour and gloom. 
Speak to Him, thou, for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet, — 
Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet." 

Tennyson. 



SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER I. 



This Introductory Chapter consists of three parts. The first lays down 
the questions proposed, and shows the necessity of asking them. 
The second illustrates what may be termed in Art-phrase the motives 
of the Essay. The third briefly describes its method, and explains 
the readiest mode of studying Natural Theology. 

Analysis — Inquiries underlying Natural Theology — Way in which they 
are answered by our Instinctive Persuasions — How far this answer 
is sufficing ; how far influential. 

Phases of Doubt ; undeclared Scepticism and Indifferentism — Origin and 
leaders of the modern Sceptical and Materialistic Schools — Doubts 
of Intellect distinguished from Scepticism of Immorality — Social 
dangers and alarms exemplified. 

Method of this Essay, and requests as to the mode of reading it — Divi- 
sions of Argument ; their separate and consilient effect. 

Additional Notes and Illustrations. 

A. — The Right Honourable W. E. Gladstone and others on Modern 

Scepticism. 

B. — On Corruption of the Judgment by misdirected Moral Sentiments. 
C — On Special Pleading in History and Morals. 

D. — On the Method employed throughout this Essay. 

E. — On the Effect of Consilient Proofs. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY, 



CHAPTEE I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

No subjects of thought have ever been proposed more essential 
to the culture and happiness of mankind than the two following 
inquiries. 

Upon the first, human minds dwell unweariedly through 
every change of circumstance from childhood to advanced age. 
It is this : — What reason have we to look for a future life after 
that hour of dissolution which inevitably awaits us all ? 

The second question unites itself closely, as by indissoluble 
links, to the first. We always proceed to ask, Is there suffi- 
cient ground for believing in the existence of a Supreme Moral 
Being, to whose righteous care and kindness we can calmly 
commit ourselves when we come to die ? 

Suppose any man to maintain that the universe we inhabit, 
— and we who are a portion of its occupants — came into exist- 
ence by chance, he renounces at once every right and title to 
expect a life succeeding his bodily death. Chance — if the word 
means anything — means absolute uncertainty ; and from that 
which is in its own nature uncertain, what continuing effects, 
what conclusive expectation, can be drawn ? 

Neither is the prospect improved by Materialists (a), in whose 

(a) The language of this paragraph is the language of ordinary life. 
In Coleridge's " Table Talk," for example, the subject of Man's distin- 
guishing prerogative of Immortality is discussed by the great speaker, 
and his nephew's note of the discussion is headed 4 ' Materialism. " 
There appears, indeed, considerable difficulty in finding a precise expres- 
sion for the form of belief, or unbelief, commonly called Materialism. 
Most people speak of it as of some clear and well-defined theory until 
they begin seriously to investigate its rationale. Investigators are then 
apt to become loud in their complaints of its inexactness. Take by 
way of instance the following example. Speaking of ( * the doctrines of 



6 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



opinion the being of man comprehends no element differing 
essentially, and in kind, from the natural world he rules over. 
We see actually consequent upon every death-bed the decay of 
our material frame ; if, therefore, that frame be not the casket 
of a brigjiter jewel, we can assuredly affirm no hope higher or 
happier than corruption. 

The feelings of most human beings revolt from a destiny so 
ignoble. And many persons are satisfied that this revolt of 
feeling is in itself a sufficient ground for some belief in Im- 
mortality. Why, they ask, should so powerful an instinct dwell 
in the breast of our race with only a misleading issue ? The 
higher instincts of creatures below us do not mislead them re- 
garding that which is to come. Insects innumerable make pro- 
vision for the certain sustenance of a progeny they never can 
live to behold. They also anticipate for themselves a futurity 
of life and development. The caterpillar invests himself with 
the web he has spun, and sinks into a chrysalid-sepulchre, to 
emerge from it in sun-lighted beauty. Can any valid reason 
be assigned why the intuitive aspirations of man should be 
more fallacious than such practical foresights of the merely 
animal world below him ? 

Materialism," Lord Brougham remarks; "The vague and indistinct 
form of the propositions in which they are conveyed affords one strong 
argument against their truth. It is not easy to annex a definite meaning 
to the proposition that mind is inseparably connected with a particular 
arrangement of the particles of matter ; it is more difficult to say what 
they mean who call it a modification of matter ; but to consider it as con- 
sisting in a combination of matter, as coming into existence the instant 
that the particles of matter assume a given arrangement, appears to be 
a wholly unintelligible collocation of words." — {Discourse of Natural 
Theology, p. 102). 

Under such circumstances it may seem difficult for many a Materialist 
to describe himself as the adherent of a distinct or closely reasoned 
system. The main point we would submit for his earnest consideration 
is the question whether his hypothesis lands him in certain subtle refine- 
ments concerning the nature and connection of Force, Mind, and those 
generalized facts which have been called the primary properties of Matter, 
— or whether it leads him onward to the opinions described in the text. 
Looking at the subject in this light, we might feel inclined to draw a 
broad distinction between mere scientific Materialism and the Material- 
istic doctrines of sceptical philosophy. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



7 



So far as the writer of these pages is aware, no one 
has ever alleged a reason why mankind should be thus 
deluded. And without going further than our own country, 
it seems probable that this instinctive persuasion is seldom 
wanting amongst the greater part of our people. Although 
the moral consequences of such a persuasion, sometimes 
merely passive, may be far less than good men could desire, 
yet they are frequently strong enough to assist the weak 
and wavering when exposed to sudden temptations. In 
the " short and simple annals of the poor," may be read 
countless instances of the fact. Neglected men and women, 
the scorned outcasts of society, have been often held back 
by it from greater criminality. They have found themselves 
unable to acquiesce in the belief of their world's opinion 
— the opinion of their evil friends and companions — that 
death must be to all creatures the certain end of all 
things. 

If, on the other hand, absolute knowledge of a future state 
were the natural gift of each person's understanding, there are 
thousands amongst our educated classes to whom the trial and 
terror of their own hearts would be incalculably mitigated. 
Numbers feel that speculative doubts concerning the Being of 
a God, and life after death, are sources of a continual perplexity 
and distress, under which they find little or no sympathy. In 
every fresh affliction or anxiety, such a mind has to sustain a 
double burden of sorrow, and concerning such it seems emphati- 
cally true, that "the heart knoweth his own bitterness." There 
may, however, be suggested one alleviation for every similar 
instance of despondency. The same rule holds in this respect 
as in all human pursuits, — labour is, and will always continue, 
the appointed path by which we must attain. The more noble 
the object sought, the more arduous the task and toil, — and 
what - can be nobler than a well-grounded belief in God and 
Immortality ? 

Another very large class of educated persons bear their 
doubts with stoical composure, account them an inevitable 
burden, and consider it lost time to ask questions concerning 
" the Unknowable." This class is sustained in its attitude by 



8 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



the prevalence (6) of really sceptical writings ; — writings (that 
is) which deny the possibility of knowledge beyond the circle 
of positive phenomena. Maxims to this effect are not uncom- 
monly disseminated through the periodical press, books of 
fiction, and other kinds of light literature. The rapidity of 
modern life leads men to take opinions upon trust, and keeps 
them back from serious investigation. An ephemeral satirist 
becomes in their eyes as valuable an authority as the most 
deeply- thinking reasoner. Much work is saved by this valua- 
tion, to say nothing of the great gain in self-complacency. And, 
no doubt, many persons feel particularly complacent in taking 
their tone from minds which are evidently no better informed, 
and no more finely strung than their own (c). 

The class of sceptics just described, cannot be reckoned in 
figures. Tbey make up multitudes never enumerated apart in 
any religious census. They live and die and make no sign, — 
and how can quiet una vowed disbelief obtain a separate place 
in the columns of the Registrar-General ? Among the audible 
tones of respectable people it finds no utterance, and therefore 
occupies no position. Every one experienced in the world 

(b) "I doubt," said Mr. Gladstone at Liverpool on December 21, 1872, 
— "I doubt whether any such noxious crop has been gathered in such rank 
abundance from the press of England in any former year of our literary 
history as in this present year of our redemption, eighteen hundred and 
seventy-two." The Premier had before remarked: "I believe that neither 
Science nor Thought is responsible, any more than Liberty is responsible, 
for the misdeeds committed in their names." 

The passage from which these brief extracts are made is given at greater 
length in the additional note to this Section (A). 

(c) Since writing the above, my attention has been called to Paley's 
censure of the ' ' disingenuous form " under which Scepticism was placed 
before the public in his day. He says (Moral Philosophy, B. v. Sect. 9) : 
" Infidelity is served up in every shape that is likely to allure, surprise, 
or beguile the imagination ; in a fable, a tale, a novel, a poem ; in inter- 
spersed and broken hints, remote and oblique surmises ; in books of 
travels, of philosophy, of natural history ; in a word, in any form rather 
than the right one, — that of a professed and regular disquisition. And 
because the coarse buffoonery and broad laugh of the old and rude adver- 
saries of the Christian faith would offend the taste, perhaps, rather than 
the virtue of this cultivated age, a graver irony, a more skilful and deli- 
cate banter, is substituted in their place. " 



INTRODUCTORY. 



9 



knows that this species of Iiidifferentism is usually regular at 
public worship, and reticent where sceptical phrases pass cur- 
rent. The only sure test is a moral one — of very slow applica- 
tion, since it takes time for a decent sceptic to balance the 
pleasures against the risks of immorality. Meantime, there 
remains some possible hope for a happier choice during the 
period of indecision. 

Far fewer, because far more strongly declared, are the literary 
lodestars of that harbourless sea, where all beyond the horizon 
of cloud and billow seems veiled and uncertain. Some amongst 
them may, after all, be but wandering lights themselves (d), 
floating and drifting like meteors which glimmer at nightfall 
across shadowy waters. Others appear really fixed in a dim 
and joyless firmament where the Present only is true, the 
remote Past a conjecture, and the Future altogether inscru- 
table. According to them this bounded prospect is the true goal 
and real aim of our transitory life, — within it the trials and 
griefs of humanity assume their proper dimensions and pale 
their ineffectual terrors, while peace, like a river of Eden, flows 
out over the once martyred but now ransomed race of man. 
Even in our own imperfect struggling day, the human creature 
may be happy who certainly knows that this mixed existence 
is his All — that outside* it he can live no life except in the 
memory of his fellow-men — that there is no God, no futurity 
of individual progress or perfection ; but that one thing happens 
equally to the good and the bad — the wise and the unwise. This 
knowledge brings happiness, because it chases from the breast 
self-centred hope and fear : the man who accepts this blank 
beholds himself, as he really is, an atom of the Universal 
Whole — borne now by the irresistible tide of force into sun- 
light — borne soon by the same irresistible tide into a darkness 
of the shadow of death. 

Compared with this creed, the martyrs of Monotheism were 
self-loving — for did not they hope ? Compared with this 
simple creed, all who have stopped short on the threshold of 

(d) "Atheists/' says the Pall Mall Gazette of January 18, 1873, " write 
Atheism because they are Atheists, but Alexandre Dumas writes Atheism, 
though a good Catholic, who goes to church every Sunday." 



10 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



frightful crimes, and hesitated to stain their souls, were also 
self-loving — for did they not fear ? 

A great variety of remonstrances have been addressed to 
writers of this latter type (e). Social consequences have been 
eloquently urged against hypotheses which, if realised, would 
weaken, or perhaps destroy, self-control, foresight, and self- 
improvement. In reply we are told that these obj ects of pursuit 
still appear good and useful to benevolent eyes. But it should 
be remembered that our age is one of transition — half-developed 
as it were in Doubt. Our benevolent men have not yet been 
fully disciplined in the coming school. Who, therefore, shall 
safely predict for us the effects of its proposed discipline ? Add 
that, looking at the civilised world in general, certain ideas 
(illusions, as they are sometimes called) respecting a Futurity 
influenced by our present right and wrong-doing, are ingrained 
in cultured man, and may perhaps be described as connate 
with his nineteenth-century existence (/). Is it possible, then, 
for any one to say beforehand what may or may not be the 
consequence of uprooting cherished principles fitted in their 
own nature to exercise so practical an influence ? 

Kemonstrances of this kind, however truthful and valuable 
in themselves, would be out of place in the ensuing pages. A 
contribution to the constructive science of Natural Theology 

(e) Pre-eminent amongst these remonstrants is Mr. Gladstone. In 
the speech before cited, he says, p. 25 : "It is to be hoped that they will 
cause a shock and a reaction, and will compel many, who may have too 
lightly valued the inheritance so dearly bought for them, and may have 
entered upon dangerous paths, to consider, while there is yet time, 
whither those paths will lead them. In no part of his writings, perhaps, 
has Strauss been so effective, as where he assails the inconsistency of those 
who adopt his premises, but decline to follow him to their conclusions. 
Suffice it to say, these opinions are by no means a merely German brood ; 
there are many writers of kindred sympathies in England, and some of as 
outspoken courage." (Compare the extracts from this class of writers given 
along with the Premier's remarks in Note A.) 

(/) Die Zustande eines Volkes hangen hauptsachlich von seiner Denk- 
weise ab : diese ist der wichtigste und einflussreichste Zustand. Alle 
andern konnen nur nach und in ihr begriffen werden . Sie ist es, die den 
Menschen zu einem solchen macht ; und in ihrer Ausbildung entwickelt 
sich erst die Menschlichkeit. — (Wilhelm H. J. Bleek, " Ueber den Urs- 
prung der Sprache," p. 12). 



INTRODUCTORY. 



11 



must rest its arguments upon the reason of the case, to the ex- 
clusion of many interesting and persuasive considerations. All 
questions of Sociology, have, however, a special fascination for 
numerous thinkers who are unlikely to overlook negative con- 
clusions lying close upon the confines of their own science, and 
to them the treatment of such questions must be remitted. 

That these phases of thought have not, in fact, escaped the 
consideration of benevolent observers, may be inferred from the 
special circumstances under which this Essay is composed. Into 
every condition (each being required by the exigencies of the 
subject) the present writer enters with honest cordiality. His 
wish and aim is to place before those who, while they doubt, 
still debate, certain reasonable considerations which have ap- 
peared convincing to other speculative minds. And he may 
defend himself from any possible charge of causeless intermed- 
dling with other men's concerns, in the words of one amongst 
our most genuinely English poets : — 

" 'Twere well, says one sage, erudite, profound, 
Terribly arch'd and aquiline his nose, 
And overbuilt with most impending brows, 
'Twere well could you permit the World to live 
As the World pleases : what's the World to you ? 
Much. I was born of woman, and drew milk 
As sweet as charity from human breasts. 
I think, articulate, I laugh and weep, 
And exercise all functions of a man. 
How then should I and any man that lives 
Be strangers to each other ? " * 

There are, however, doubters whom the writer can scarcely 
desire to address — human beings in whose hearts to deny God 

* Cowper, "The Task," B. III. — It must be confessed that the honest- 
minded humanitarian may often find in the reception he encounters 
ample reason and motive enough for taking up Teufelsdroeckh's parable : 
— " ' In vain thou deniest it/ says the Professor ; 'thou art my Brother. 
Thy very hatred, thy very envy, those foolish lies thou tellest of me in 
thy splenetic humour : what is all this but an inverted sympathy % 
Were I a steam-engine, wouldst thou take the trouble to tell lies of me ? 
Not thou ! I should grind all unheeded, whether badly or well.' " — 
(Sartor Resartus, B. III. c. 7). And when the bigotry of Unbelief is 



12 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



kindles a vivid delight, because belief in Him would compel the 
renunciation of some darling wickedness. The true spring of 
their Materialism, Pantheism, — or whatever else happens to be 
the adopted form of Negation — lies within the will (g) itself. 
And, therefore, the wish to be better must precede the wish to 
hear any one who reasons of righteousness, temperance, or 
judgment to come. 

To those who doubt, yet desire that Truth — whichever way 

not content with persecuting the honest-minded humanitarian — when he 
hears some shallow, half-animalized specimen of humanity shouting for a 
red-handed communism and the blood of the innocent — then he may not 
irrationally exclaim with the same philosopher : — " Wert thou, my little 
Brotherkin, suddenly covered up within the largest imaginable glass-bell, 
— what a thing it were, not for thyself only, but for the world ! ' ; 

(g) I am indebted to Mr. Gladstone's appendix (p. 40) for the following 
apposite quotations from Sir George Cornewall Lewis's very scarce work, 
"On the Influence of Authority in Matters of Opinion. ' ; Speaking of 
" Authority, and its place not as an antagonist of Reason, but as an 
instrument of Reason for the attainment of Truth," Sir George remarks, 
in page 35 of his book : " ' It is commonly said that the belief is inde- 
pendent of the will,' and that no man can change it ' by merely wishing 
it to be otherwise. ' But ' the operation of a personal interest may cause 
a man insensibly to adopt prejudices or partial and unexamined opinions.' 
In page 38 he adds .' ' Napoleon affords a striking instance of the cor- 
ruption of the judgment in consequence of the misdirection of the moral 
sentiments.' " 

All friends, and many casual readers, of S. T. Coleridge will remember 
that he asserted the same, or perhaps a stronger, conclusion upon meta- 
physical grounds, and with a force of language not easily surpassed. 
This— one of Coleridge's bursts of gorgeous eloquence and imagery — will 
be found in " The Friend," a book which, according to C. Lamb, contains 
"his best talk." The subject commences on page 260 of Vol. III., 
Ed. 2, and page 211, seq., Yol. III., Ed. 4. In the latter place it is 
amplified by a summary of his arguments, pages 213, 214. The position 
propounded, that true insight cannot exist apart from moral rectitude, 
receives considerable light from the doctrine of philosophical postulates 
maintained in the " Biographia Literaria," Yol. I. c. 12, and chiefly bor- 
rowed from Schelling, to whom there is an honest reference in the first 
Edition, I. 250. I mention this circumstance because Coleridge has been 
held guilty of unjustifiable pillage by writers who have noted his bor- 
rowing, but omitted to observe such acknowledgments as he makes, 
together with the additions and alterations which he introduces. 

The corruption of a naturally acute understanding has seldom been 
more graphically painted than by Judge Talfourd. (See Additional Note, 
B.) 



INTRODUCTORY, 



13 



Truth may incline — shall distinctly prevail, the ensuing pages 
are dedicated. And one main endeavour to be kept in view 
by both writer and reader is, that, laying aside passion and 
prejudice, these questions may be discussed under the siccum 
lumen — the purified ray — of Right Reason. To argue for victory 
may be allowed an advocate who pleads subject to the inter- 
vention of a judge. But here we have no arbiter to say what 
is or is not allowable ; here, too, the matter is in itself some- 
thing graver than corporeal life, or death, or all else beneath 
the sky ; here, finally, the case is personal, since each reasoner 
first settles an account with his own heart ; next, tries and 
decides a conclusive issue, and by his own sentence, accepts 
more than any human foresight can declare. Here, then, special 
pleading* is altogether out of place on either side, and we 
must, if we aim at what is best, argue for nothing more or less 
than the plain and simple truth. 

There must, of course, be difficulties in keeping this straight 
and honest road. Few men like making admissions apparently 
at variance with their own conclusions; fewer still like to 
forego pleas which, though in their own judgment unsound, 
are certainly specious, and to many minds persuasive. Such, 
however, is the wish and aim of the present essayist. And, 
that he may bind himself the more firmly to his own resolu- 
tion, he requests his readers to believe that any over-statement 
or other error of which he may fairly be found guilty, is occa- 
sioned by the unpleasantly common cause of ignorance,— a 
cause which Dr. Johnson confessed was his reason for defining 
"pastern" as a "horse's knee." "Ignorance, madam, pure 
ignorance," he replied, to the surprise of his fair critic, who 
expected an elaborate defence. Per contra, the essayist may 
equitably claim that he shall not be convicted by a too sum- 
mary and inconsiderate process. At the first blush, there will 
certainly appear in the eyes of many readers numerous seeming 
mistakes, which, if carefully scrutinized, may afterwards be 
held the reverse. At all events, plain dealing and honest 
purpose demand that, when Truth is the issue truly sought, 

* Compare Lord Macaulay on " Special Pleading in History," Additional 
Note, C. 



14 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



those who approach it from opposite sides must (if they desire 
to do right) sift their objections and difficulties as well as their 
favourite arguments. 

Reasoning on Natural Theology falls necessarily into two 
divisions. The first is made up of arguments drawn from the 
world without us. The second, of arguments drawn from the 
world within Qi). Each path of reasoning is subject to a cross 
division. We may argue affirmatively to a definite conclusion. 
We may also argue negatively with the same end in view ; — we 
may show how much more difficult and less tenable is the con- 
tradictory hypothesis. 

It would be an awkward and almost impracticable task to 
keep these kinds of reasoning far apart. The natural procedure 
of thought, is to combine, rather than to dissever, when we 
marshal facts for the purpose of a full and wide generalization. 
Yet it does seem practicable to mark every transition of thought 
distinctly ; and, if clearly marked, the distinction may easily 
be kept in mind. 

With this precaution, it may appear allowable to treat 
Natural Theology in a more discursive manner than could 
otherwise be permitted. The object of so doing will be to 
divest discussion as much as possible of a dry, logical stiffness; 
and, by ranging round each topic (i) to look at it in various 
lights ; a process which generally discovers both the weakness 
and the strength of reasoning. Any one who has read Plato 
will understand the advantage of Dialogue in this respect. A 
more familiar book, Coleridge's " Friend," is another apt illus- 
tration. Each of its series of essays takes a sweep of the kind ; 
and each " landing-place " affords a rest to the reader, and a 
fresh beginning to the intellectual tour. Without venturing to 
copy the quaint invention of landing-places, the present writer 
intends making every Chapter the occasion of a fresh start 
The separate trains of thought will thus proceed from distinct 
points, and travel by separate routes, so as to admit of full 

(7i) These divisions have been sometimes called Physico-Theology and 
Ethico-Theology ; but the latter designation is far too restricted for the 
line of thought pursued in the latter portion of this Essay. 

(i) See Additional Note, D. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



15 



inspection in their progress. Each argument allowed by the 
reader to be valid, will finally link itself to its neighbours; and 
all thoughtful persons know how to estimate the strength of 
convergent conclusions. 

The writer trusts, also, that he may be allowed to escape 
the two alternatives, — either circumlocution, or the use of an 
objectionable pronoun singular, by employing the plural " iue." 
This word may perhaps have a further good effect; it may 
remind both reader and writer that they are engaged as pil- 
grim-companions on a journey of joint exploration. 

At the head of all their reasonings, Natural Theologians 
usually place the celebrated argument from Design. It would 
be impossible, in discussing it, to reproduce here the many illus- 
trative examples of Design which have been collected. It would 
likewise be useless ; partly, because they are all easily accessible 
and mostly well known ; partly, because their appositeness as 
illustrations is now fully admitted ; and the controversy turns 
upon questions of another and more abstract kind. It is asked 
whether the analogy founded on these instances is relevant ? 
— whether it proves too little, or too much ? — and, how far the 
inferences drawn from such examples really go ? Our plan 
will, therefore, be to devote our second Chapter to the examina- 
tion of such objections ; to the review and elucidation of the 
argument from Design. But if the reader wishes really to 
study the various questions closely connected with this cele- 
brated line of thought, and to view the reasoning in a shape so 
complete as to be at once relevant and satisfactory, he may 
be pleased to bestow a leisure hour on the consecutive perusal 
of Chapters II., V., and VI., with their appended notes and 
illustrations. 

The third Chapter is intended as a critical propaedeutic or 
foundation for the constructive science of Natural Theology. 
So far as our experience of men in great cities teaches any- 
thing with respect to the speculative difficulties which keep 
them from God, it seems to teach one undoubted fact. There 
is grounded in their minds a persuasion (underlying all further 
objections), that, whatever else we can know, little or nothing 
is to be learned concerning God. The idea of Theism is thus 



16 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



isolated from every other idea ; and there is a presumption 
against all reasoning which in any way leads up to a determi- 
nate thought of the Divine Being or the Divine attributes. 

Some such doubters allege the necessary limitation of human 
knowledge in general : — 

"Know then thyself, presume not God to scan ; 
The proper study of mankind is man." 

But, is not one chief object in knowing man, to acquaint 
ourselves with God ? In this spirit Quarles says : — 

" Man is man's ABC; there's none that can 
Bead God aright, unless he first spell man." 

We may be perfectly sure that every human being, who (as 
Pope continues) hangs between the sceptic and the stoic, — 

" In doubt to deem himself a god or beast," 

will never arrive at any knowledge of God whatsoever. 

Others, again, who suppose mankind to know a great deal, 
conceive all special thought which transcends the every-day 
human circle, to be encompassed by a number of difficulties 
exceptionally its own. If, it is said, there are angelic natures, 
they must needs pity our poor attempts to survey SK^er-human 
or e^^ra-human spheres of existence :— 

" Superior beings, when of late they saw 
A mortal man unfold all nature's law, 
Admir'd such wisdom in an earthly shape, 
And show'd a Newton as we show an ape." * 

Pope's cynicism has been lately re-echoed in various compari- 
sons. A deathwatch has been supposed to speculate on the 
final end of a clock ; a timepiece on the nature of its makers. 
Writers who use similitudes may be asked to remember that 
if Man really possesses reason (to say nothing of an immortal 

* Pope, " Essay on Man," Ep. II. Compare Mr. Pattison's notes, pp. 
87, 88, and 90. We may remark that the Aphorism "Know thyself'' 
has been often employed to convey a lesson the most distant possible from 

Pope's, e.g., " Know thyself ; and so shalt thou know God, as far as is 

permitted to a creature, and in God all things." 



INTRODUCTORY. 



17 



spirit), he cannot be ranged in analogy with apes, death-watches, 
and timepieces. The moment brute organisms, or inorganic 
constructions, are represented as reasoning, they cease to be 
what they are — a Thing suddenly becomes a Person. If this 
were all, the speech and faculties of Man would be represented 
as intact, though veiled beneath some shape worthy of the 
invention of a Babrias or an iEsop. But this is not all. The 
monstrous shape is at once both Thing and Person, and its 
thinkings in this double character are supposed to show by 
their grotesque failures the absurdity of our human endeavour 
to reason concerning God or Immortality. 

To this whole kind of preoccupation the third Chapter is 
addressed. There are really no special difficulties in the way 
of Theism. It argues from the known to the unknown ; so do 
all the inductive sciences. It accepts more than it can explain ; 
so do we, each and all, in accepting the truth of our own indi- 
viduality and personal identity, of the world outside us, and 
the mind within, which scrutinizes that changing world. The 
more thoroughly questions relating to our first sources of know- 
ledge are debated, the more surely shall we perceive how safe 
is the starting-point of Natural Theology. 

Against Materialism, on the other hand, there may be urged 
a series of difficulties properly its own, and this may be most 
easily seen by placing it in contrast with pure Idealism. The 
Materialistic starting-point is from an unauthorized postulate — 
in common parlance, an unfounded assumption ; each step it 
takes is attended with a fresh need of postulation, amounting 
at last to the gravest burden of improbability. And when the 
materializing goal is reached we gain nothing — no treasure is 
discovered — no vista opened into new realms of intellectual or 
moral empire. We are only told that our supposed insight was 
but a dream. We are only warned to dream no more. Mate- 
rialism has murdered insight. 

With the argument of this Chapter there arises a very 
important question, which the reader is entreated to put to 
himself more than once, and bestow upon it from time to time 
a pause of serious thought. In a negative form the question 
runs thus : Since the difficulties supposed to bar the first march 

2 



18 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY, 



of Natural Theology are in no wise peculiar to it, but attach 
themselves equally to a multitude of our daily grounds of 
thinking and acting, must we not, if on account of such diffi- 
culties, we deny Natural Theism, also deny those persuasions 
of ordinary life ? How else can we maintain our critical con- 
sistency ? Let no man henceforward be confident that there 
exists an outward world of either men or things — let him not 
carelessly suppose that he has even an individual mind to 
speak of as his own — let all that concerns otherness — all that 
concerns selfiiess be relegated along with the Divine Being to 
the region of the Unknown and the Unknowable. 

But we may imagine that, instead of denying these truths of 
common life, many men will be hardy enough to affirm them. 
If so, in accepting these they clearly accept a great deal more. 
To be consistent they must accept also the reasonable beliefs 
and first principles upon which reposes Theism. 

The question thus put is therefore a dilemma or choice 
between two alternatives. And there may seem to remain no 
great doubt as to which alternative most practical reasoners 
will accept. This kind of dilemma will recur at many several 
steps of our inquiry, but having been illustrated in one instance 
at considerable length, its examination on other occasions may 
be safely left to the intelligence of the thoughtful reader. 

The four following chapters argue for the truth of Theism on 
four several and independent grounds. These arguments are 
purely constructive ; and each is so far apart from the other 
three as to stand or fall upon its own merits. But, when each 
of these four arguments has been separately examined, if ad- 
mitted either wholly or in a modified shape, their consilient and 
conjoint effect must be taken into consideration (j). 

To minimize impediments in the way of true knowledge ; 
and to rise into clearness ; — these should be the hopes and aims 
of us all. Life is full of foiled endeavours ; but let us onward 
now with the hopeful ! 



(j) See Additional Note, E. 



ADDITIONAL NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO 
CHAPTER I. 



A. — THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE AND OTHERS 
ON MODERN SCEPTICISM. 

Extract from Mr. Gladstone's Address delivered at the Liverpool 
Collegiate Institution, December ; 21st, 1872. 

"It is not now only the Christian Church, or only the Holy 
Scripture, or only Christianity, which is attacked. The disposition 
is boldly proclaimed to deal alike with root and branch, and to snap 
utterly the ties which, under the still venerable name of Religion, 
unite man with the unseen world, and lighten the struggles and the 
woes of life by the hope of a better land . 

' ' These things are done as the professed results and the newest 
triumphs of Modern Thought and Modern Science ; but I believe that 
neither Science nor Thought is responsible, any more than Liberty is 
responsible, for the misdeeds committed in their names. Upon the 
ground of what is termed evolution, God is relieved of the labour of 
creation ; in the name of unchangeable laws, He is discharged from 
governing the world ; and His function of judgment is also dispensed 
with, as justice and benevolence are held to forbid that men should 
hereafter be called to strict account for actions, which under these 
unchangeable laws they may have committed. But these are only 
the initial stages of the process. Next we are introduced to the 
doctrine of the Absolute and the Unconditioned; and under the authority 
of these phrases (to which, and many other phrases, in their proper 
places, I have no objection) we are instructed that we can know 
nothing about God, and therefore can have no practical relations with 
Him. One writer — or, as it is now termed, thinker — announces with 
pleasure that he has found the means of reconciling Religion and 
Science. The mode is in principle most equitable. He divides the 
field of thought between them. To Science he awards all that of 
Avhich we know, or may know, something ; to Religion he leaves a far 
wider domain, — that of which we know, and can know, nothing. 
This sounds like jest, but it is melancholy earnest ; and I doubt 

2 A 



20 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



whether any such noxious crop has been gathered in such rank' 
abundance from the press of England in any former year of our 
literary history as in this present year of our redemption, eighteen 
hundred and seventy-two." (pp. 22-3.) 

The writer, or thinker, mentioned by Mr. Gladstone is thus 
described at the end of the address, p. 33: — "My reference is to 
Mr. Herbert Spencer. See his ' First Principles,' and especially 
the chapter on the ' Reconciliation of Science and Religion.' It is 
needless to cite particular passages. It would be difficult to mistake 
its meaning, for it is written with great ability and clearness, as we]l 
as with every indication of sincerity. Still it vividly recalls to mim* 
an old story of the man who, wishing to be rid of one who was in his 
house, said, ' Sir, there are two sides to my house, and we will divide 
them ; you shall take the outside.' 

"I believe Mr. Spencer has been described in one of our daily 
journals as the first thinker of the age." 

To some people the Premier will appear more than reasonably 
disturbed by the journal's description. There is (as we have re- 
marked) a very advanced type of the genus journalist in England, 
and its anonymous zealots are liberal in distributing titles of honour 
— that is, among their friends. Per contra, upon authors of Mr. 
Gladstone's calibre and lofty mode of thought they bestow epithets 
very much the reverse of complimentary. They seem, in fact, some^ 
what to resemble those critics of whom Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote, 
that " though excellent fellows in their way, there are no gentlemen 
in the world less sensible of any sanctity in a book, or less likely to 
recognize an author's heart in it." So far, however, as Mr. Herbert 
Spencer is concerned, the journal censured might observe in justifica- 
tion of its approval that his system seems a good deal read by the 
students of more than one school in our Premier's own University — * 
a proud distinction shared by Mr. Spencer with several other eminent 
thinkers of the same speculative tendencies as himself. 

The eloquent speaker next passes under brief review two other 
typical books, — one by a German, the second by an Englishman. 
Respecting the opinions of the former author (Strauss*) Mr. Glad- 
stone writes thus (Authentic Report, p. 24): — "In his first chapter 
he puts the question, ' Are we still Christians ? ' and, after a detailed 
examination, he concludes, always speaking on behalf of Modern 
Thought, that if we wish our yea to be yea, and our nay nay, if we 
are to think and speak our thoughts as honourable, upright men, we 

* The work referred to, "Der alte und der neue Glaube," appeared in the latte? 
half of 1872. 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER I. 



21 



must reply that we are Christians no longer. This question and 
answer, however, he observes, are insufficient. The essential and funda- 
mental inquiry is, whether we are or b are not still to have a Beligion? 

" To this inquiry he devotes his second chapter. In this second 
chapter he finds that there is no personal (rod ; there is no future 
state ; the dead live in the recollection of survivors — this is enough 
for them. After this he has little difficulty in answering the question 
he has put. All religious worship ought to be abolished. The very 
name of ' Divine Service ' is an indignity to man. Therefore, in the 
sense in which religion has been heretofore understood, his answer is 
that we ought to have no religion any more. But proceeding, as he 
always does, with commendable frankness, he admits that he ought 
to fill with something the void which he has made. This he accord- 
ingly proceeds to do. Instead of God, he offers to us the All, or 
Universum. This All, or Universum, possesses, he tells us, neither 
consciousness nor reason. But it presents to us order and law. He 
thinks it fitted, therefore, to be the object of a new and true piety, 
which he claims for his Universum, as the devout of the old style did 
for their God. If any one repudiates this doctrine, to Dr. Strauss's 
reason the repudiation is absurdity, and to his feelings blasphemy." * 

Many readers will agree with the Premier in calling these " aston- 
ishing assertions." Many will also speak of Strauss's positions as 
something worse than astonishing when they read in the Illustrative 
Passages (Address, p. 34) a declaration which he holds it his* duty as 
well as his right to make without any kind of reserve. f 

* Compare an illustrative passage, B. III. p. 34. " We have been seeking to 
determine, whether our point of view, from which the law-governed All, full of 
life and intelligence, is the summit of thought (die hochste Idee), can still be 
called a religious point of view, and we have animadverted upon Schopenhauer, 
who loses no opportunity of flying in the face of this which is our Idea. As I 
have said, such outbreaks impress our understanding as absurdities ; to our 
feelings, they are blasphemies. It appears to us rash and reckless, on the part of 
a mere human individual, so boldly to set himself up against the All, out of which 
he grows, and from which he has the morsel of intelligence that he misuses. We 
see in this an abnegation of that feeling of dependence, which we admit to belong 
to all men. We demand the same piety towards our Universum, as the devout 
man of the old fashion did for his God." 

t This declaration we quote in its native German. Its first sentence, together 
with the sentences immediately preceding, are those passages selected for transla- 
tion by Mr. Gladstone. 

" Historisch genommen, d. h. die ungeheuren Wirkungen dieses Glaubens mit 
seiner volligen Grundlosigkeit zusammengehalten, lasst sich die Geschichte von 
der Auferstehung Jesu nur als ein welt historischer Humbug bezeichnen. Es 
mag demuthigend sein fur den menschlichen Stolz, aber es ist so ; Jesus konnte 
all das Wahre und Gute, auch all das Einseitige und Schroffe das ja doch auf die 



22 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



Most persons will likewise agree with the Premier's further 
observation (p. 38) : — "I have made a statement that these ideas are 
not a mere German brood, though I fear that we owe much of their 
seed to Germany, as France owed to England the seed of her great 
Voltairian movement, so far as it was a movement grounded in the 
region of thought." 

In illustration of the statement that " there are many writers of 
kindred sympathies in England, and some of as outspoken courage " 
(Address, p. 26), Mr. Gladstone quotes four passages from Mr. 
Winwood Reade's "Martyrdom of Man." The three first cited 
possess a painful interest for the Natural Theologian. They are as 
follows : — (1.) " When the faith in a personal God is extinguished ; 
when prayer and praise are no longer to be heard ; when the belief 
is universal that with the body dies the soul ; then the false morals 
of theology will no longer lead the human mind astray." (2.) " We 
teach that the soul is immortal ; we teach that there is a future life ; 
we teach that there is a Heaven in the ages far away : but not for us 
single corpuscles, not for us dots of animated jelly, but for the One 
of whom we are the elements, and who, though we perish, never 
dies." (3.) " God is so great that He does not deign to have 
personal relations with us human atoms that are called men. Those 
who desire to worship their Creator must worship Him through 
mankind. Such, it is plain, is the scheme of Nature." (pp. 38-9.) 

On account of his Address and pieces justificatives, Mr. Gladstone 
- has been already (like a prophet of old) " wounded in the house of 
his friends." It may therefore be well to support his judgment by 
some additional testimony. Now the Pall Mall Gazette, whatever 
faults may be imputed to it by its adversaries, cannot be justly 
charged with harshness or discourtesy towards materializing writers. 
And it so happens that both Dr. Strauss and Mr. Beade have lately 
been criticised in its columns. From these notices, therefore, I shall 
venture on making some extracts. 

Strauss's " Der Alte und der Neue Glaube " was reviewed at con- 
siderable length in the number for November 27, 1872. I quote two 
passages only. 

After an interesting introduction the reviewer proceeds thus :— 
" As the title of the book indicates, the work to be effected divides 

Mas3en immer den starksten Eindruck macht, gelehrt und im Leben bethatigt 
haben ; gleicbwohl wurden seine Lehren wie einzelne Blatter im Winde verweht 
und zerstreut worden sein, waren diese Blatter nicht von dem Walmglauben an 
seine Auferstehung als von eineni derben handfesten Einbande zusammengefasst 
und dadurch erhalten worden." (p. 72.) 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER I. 



23 



itself into two main parts. First, it is necessary to settle the 
relations- to be adopted towards the old Church faith, or Christianity. 
That accomplished, the outlines at least of the new views that take 
its place must be sketched out. Of course, before that can be done it 
must be settled whether or not there is anything to put in place 
of Christianity. It is logically correct to ask, first, whether ' we ' — 
meaning ' the thinking minority,' who have grown dissatisfied with 
' the old faith ' — ' are still Christians ' in any sense. Having answered 
that question in the negative, it is in order to ask next ' whether we 
have any religion,' — which cannot be answered by a simple negative 
or affirmative, or without further explanations as to the nature of 
religion. We must see 'how we regard the world,' or the system of 
existing things ; what results we are led to by modern researches as 
to its origin, purpose, and destiny. Although in the light that flows 
from these, Strauss maintains that the old idea of a personal God 
must disappear, he finds a Divinity in the All or totality of nature, 
whose forces and course exhibit purpose or design — subjectively 
speaking — and order, and to which we are bound, recognizing the 
wisdom that regulates them, piously to resign ourselves, seeking to 
fulfil that order of which we ourselves are a part." The following 
extract concludes the notice : — ' 'We have seen that Strauss refuses 
to acknowledge Christianity because on examination its assertions 
appear to him incredible, and its claims therefore inadmissible. That 
is the result of an examination of the nature of Christianity, in which 
we have nothing new, as it is substantially a synopsis of the fuller 
process of reasoning contained in 'The Life of Jesus.' But it is not 
Christianity alone that must be dispensed with. In accordance with 
the old declaration that miracles are impossible, the supernatural also 
disappears. It is not merely relegated, as by Herbert Spencer and 
Comte, to the sphere of the Unknowable ; it is not recognized in any 
manner whatsoever. In place of creation, we have in these pages a 
process of continuous development through immense periods of time ; 
instead of God, as the source of law and authority and order, nature 
proceeding harmoniously in an unending process ; instead of indi- 
vidual immortality, the conclusion that every individual fulfils his 
destiny in this world. The divinities and the after life of man are, 
as with Feuerbach, declared to be simply his own desires. ' What 
man might be but is not, he makes his god ; what he might possess 
but cannot win for himself, that shall his god bestow upon him.' In 
reference to the argument that man must somewhere realize all the 
possibilities that are in him, and as he does not do so in this life 
there must be a future one, Strauss asks whether all seeds in nature 



24 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



come to maturity. Having dispensed, then, with the supernatural, 
are we necessarily without any religion ? We have seen that Strauss 
answers in the negative, though not very confidently. The funda- 
mental views on human life, the existence of the world, and so forth, 
are without doubt a religion, or the theoretical side of one. If in order 
to a religion it be necessary to believe that the universe fulfils a 
rational purpose through a rational order, we have that presented to 
us. There is constant process and continuous development. There 
is an ascent, as it were, of the forces of nature which perform their 
mighty cycles through the ages, and a consequent descent and 
vanishing away. The All remains ever the same, is at no moment 
more complete than in the preceding, nor vice versa, but there is a 
nroccss of becoming and disappearing which goes on, or may go on 
Ad infinitum. The design or purpose of every part is being fulfilled 
at every moment, for at every moment there is the richest possible 
unfolding of life in the total system of things. The highest idea to 
which we can attain is that of the universe. 

" Many people were scandalized when a few years ago Mr. Mill 
maintained that the idea of a God was not indispensable to a religion. 
Comte's 4 Religion of Humanity' was then in view. Strauss' s religion, 
though equally without a God, is deformed by no such crudities of 
thought and feeling as Comte's. Rather is his book a representation 
in brief compass of the views to which, whether we regret it or not, 
the majority of educated and thinking men are in our day more and 
more attracted." 

One remarkable circumstance dwelt upon in this notice, as well 
as in Mr. Gladstone's Address, is that Strauss, like Comte, finds a 
substitute for the worship of a Deity — a something which both are 
pleased to call a Religion. Strauss takes the theoretical, Comte the 
sentimental view. According to the Frenchman, men are to worship 
" Humanity " with a leaning to the female side. The un-deformed 
religion of the German centres upon an Optimistic theory of the All 
or Universum.* Both would seem practically to confess the real 

* As a consequence of the difference in standpoint, the use made by the two 
men of their several conclusions is marked by very considerable contrast. Comte's 
Humanity was to be served by a ritual as well as a social set of ordinances. Strauss 
7 ooks quite another way. Considering the outrage which would be committed upon 
philosophy and feeling should his Universum find irreverent treatment in the words 
and writings of men ; our emotion, he says, on such occasions becomes thoroughly 
religious. If then it be asked in express terms whether he and his fellow-thinkers 
really have a Religion or no, they cannot answer roundly as they will when ques- 
tioned on Christianity ; they must rather say yes or no according to the meaning of 
the word Religion in the mind of their questioner. (See Strauss, p. 143.) 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER I. 



25 



necessity of some Religion to mankind, and the question naturally 
occurs "whether these succedanea are more wholesome and elevatiog 
than Theism, or whether (it may be added) they are as likely to be 
true after all. 

Mr. Win wood Reade's "Martyrdom of Man" had been criticised 
four days earlier (Pall Mall Gazette, Nov. 23). As he is an English 
writer, I take the liberty of making more copious extracts, but would 
recommend such of my readers as have not perused the article to 
bestow half an hour's steady thought upon it. 

" Mr. Reade," writes the critic, " puts forth his book as a sort of 
review, or survey, or abridgement of the general history of the human 
race, and he has given to it the strange title it bears because he is of 
opinion that ' the supreme and mysterious Power by whom the uni- 
verse has been created, and by whom it has been appointed to run its 
course under fixed and invariable law ; that awful One to whom it is 
profanity to pray, of whom it is idle and irreverent to argue and de- 
bate, of whom we should never presume to think save with humility 
and awe ; that Unknown God has ordained that mankind should be 
elevated by misfortune, and that happiness should grow out of misery 
and pain. ; But, although the work is in the main historical, it is also 
partly cosmological, partly physiological, and partly polemical. It 
deals with the past, the present, and the future of the world as well 
as of humanity 

" In what he has to say on the present occasion Mr. Reade lays no 
claim to originality. On the contrary, he warns us that he has bor- 
rowed, ' not only facts and ideas, but phrases and even paragraphs 
from other writers.' The purpose he has in view is to illustrate the 
investigations and enforce the conclusions within a moderate compass 
of higher and more voluminous authorities. But still there is quite 
enough of his own handiwork in the volume to entitle him to be 
regarded as far more than a mere compiler ; and we venture to think 
that many readers will find those portions of it which are the fruits of 
Mr. Reade's personal experience as an African explorer, and his reflec- 
tions upon that which he has himself seen, among the most interesting 
and instructive of all. 

" In the writings of Mr. Darwin, Mr. Mill, Dr. Draper, and Mr. 
Herbert Spencer, the authors to whom Mr. Reade seems to be chiefly 
indebted, the assumed antagonism between the conclusions of modern 
science and the premisses of popular theology is latent rather than 
manifest. With them it is left as a matter of inference, and is 
nowhere forced upon the attention as a matter of fact. Mr. Reade 
endeavours to supply this deficiency, and he does so distinctly and 



26 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



abruptly enough In order to build we must destroy. 

Not only the Syrian superstition must be attacked, but the belief in 
a ' personal God,' which engenders a slavish and oriental condition of 
the mind, and the belief in a posthumous reward which engenders a 

selfish and solitary condition of the heart What Mr. 

Reade is pleased to designate ' the Syrian superstition ' is still the 
direct or indirect source of all the really practical sympathy existing 
both between the higher and lower classes of society and the higher 
and lower races of mankind. As to the belief in a personal God, the 
passage we have quoted above from Mr. Reade seems to show that he 
shares it, or the language he uses is mere nonsense. It would be 
absurd to talk about anything except a personal God creating the 
universe, appointing fixed and invariable laws, and ordaining the des- 
tiny of mankind. And if Mr. Reade is referring merely to force 
collectively or in the abstract, we cannot perceive why it ' should be 
idle and irreverent to argue and debate about ' it, or why c we should 
never presume to think, save with humility and awe ' about it, more 
than about its particular and concrete manifestations ; for instance, 
light, heat, or electricity. Moreover, if we admit that the universe is 
in any sense the work of a supreme and mysterious Power who has 
in any sense predestined an unalterable course for it to run, we cannot 
understand how such a belief is fitted to remove the ' slavish and 
oriental condition of mind ' of which Mr. Reade complains. We 
should have thought rather that the unmitigated fatalism it implies 
would be far likelier to generate such an intellectual state than reliance 
on providential superintendence and interposition carried to no matter 
what extravagant lengths. Mr. Reade's proposition that the belief in 
a posthumous reward engenders a selfish and solitary condition of the 
heart appears to us likewise wide of the mark. As long as we con- 
tinue to be individual beings, our conduct will continue to be the result 
of our individual feelings, present or anticipated. Practically, at all 
events, the Stoic, the Sadducee, and the Christian equally will fulfil 
instead of neglecting their duty — first, because they are conscious that 
it is their duty, and secondly, because they know that fulfilling it will 
bring them satisfaction, and that to neglect it will bring them remorse. 
The only difference is that the Christian trusts that his satisfaction in 
the one case, and fears that his remorse in the other case, will be 
infinitely prolonged." 

Mr. Reade's reviewer concludes his critique with a piece of wit from 
Voltaire, which he views as enunciating a pretty fair summary of the 
moral contained in the " Martyrdom of Man." Voltaire compares the 
Creator of the world to the builder of a great house, and men to the 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER I. 



27 



mice who inhabit its chinks and crannies. The Divine builder has not 
enlightened us mice. This comparison has often since been repeated 
in new and improved shapes by sceptical moderns, who treat a con- 
siderate Death-watch as a typical thinker on problems of reason, such 
as Design and Final Causation. 

As author of a Lecture on Positivism in 1871, I cannot but be 
gratified to perceive that Mr. Gladstone's views of Comte's character and 
system are coincident with my own. (Authentic Report, pp. 25 and 36.) 

This note began with extracts furnished by one Premier — it may not 
inaptly close with quotations from the writings of another. 

Mr. Disraeli, in his preface to the new edition of "Lothair," ex- 
presses himself as follows (p. xv., seq.) : — 

" It cannot be denied that the aspect of the world and this country, 
to those who have faith in the spiritual nature of man, is at this time 
dark and distressful. They listen to doubts, and even denials, of an 
active Providence ; what is styled Materialism is in the ascendant. 
To those who believe that an atheistical society, though it may be 
polished and amiable, involves the seeds of anarchy, the prospect is 
full of gloom. 

" This disturbance in the mind of nations has been occasioned by 
two causes : firstly, by the powerful assault on the divinity of the 
Semitic literature by the Germans ; and, secondly, by recent dis- 
coveries of science, which are hastily supposed to be inconsistent 
with our long-received convictions as to the relations between the 
Creator and the created." 

On the first cause of disturbance, Mr. Disraeli continues : — " Man 
brings to the study of the oracles more learning and more criticism 
than of yore : and it is well that it should be so. "The documents 
will yet bear a greater amount both of erudition and examination than 
they have received ; but the word of God is eternal, and will survive 
the spheres." 

On the second, he observes : — " Scientific, like spiritual truth, has 
ever from the beginning been descending from Heaven to man. He is 
a being who organically demands direct relations with his Creator, and 
he would not have been so organised if his requirements could not be 
satisfied. We may analyse the sun and penetrate the stars, but man 
is conscious that he is made in God's own image, and in his perplexity 
he will ever appeal to ' our Father which art in Heaven.' " 

Both these sources of doubt and denial have been exemplified in 
the preceding note. I might indeed have hesitated to exemplify them 
so fully were it not for the considerations mentioned in my preface 
to this essay. 



28 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



B.— ON CORRUPTION OF THE JUDGMENT BY MIS- 
DIRECTED MORAL SENTIMENTS. 

Talfourd — then Mr. Serjeant Talfourd — thus describes what passed 
in his own mind when viewing the site of Gibbon's abode at Lau- 
sanne : — " That garden in which the Historian took his evening walk, 
after writing the last lines of the work to which many years had 
been devoted ; — a walk which alone would have hallowed the spot, 
if, alas ! there had not been those intimations in the work itself of 
a purpose which, tending to desecrate the world, must deprive all 
associations attendant on its accomplishment of a claim to be dwelt 
on as holy ! How melancholy is it to feel that intellectual con- 
gratulation which attends the serene triumph of a life of studious 
toil chilled by the consciousness that the labour, the research, the 
Asiatic splendour of illustration, have been devoted, in part at least, 
to obtain a wicked end — not in the headlong wantonness of youth, or 
the wild sportiveness of animal spirits, but urged by the deliberate, 
hearted purpose of crushing the light of human hope — all that is 
worth living for, and all that is worth dying for — and substituting 
for them nothing but a rayless scepticism. That evening walk is an 
awful thing to meditate on ; the walk of a man of rare capacities, 
tending to his own physical decline, among the serenities of loveliest 
nature, enjoying the thought that, in the chief work of his life, 
just accomplished, he had embodied a hatred to the doctrines which 
teach men to love one another, to forgive injuries, and to hope for a 
diviner life beyond the grave ; and exulting in the conviction that 
this work would survive to teach its deadly lesson to young ingenuous 
students, when he should be dust. One may derive consolation from 
reflecting that the style is too meretricious, and the attempt too 
elaborate and too subtle, to achieve the proposed evil ; and in hoping 
that there were some passages in the secret history of the author's 
heart, which may extenuate its melancholy error ; but our personal 
veneration for successful toil is destroyed in the sense of the strange 
malignity which blended with its impulses, and we feel no desire 
to linger over the spot where so painful a contradiction is presented 
as a charm." — Vacation Rambles. Ed. 2, p. 238. 

We may gladly give Gibbon the benefit of the doubt with which 
the great judge closes. But surely most attempts to address the 
mental state depicted must needs be found impotent. There is great 
force in a dictum of Schelling's (" Idealismus der Wissenschaftslehre ") 
to the^ following effect — " The medium by which spirits understand 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER I. 



29 



each other is not the ambient air, but the deep-stirred sympathetic 
vibrations propagated by a community of spiritual freedom. When 
a soul is not pervaded by this atmosphere of conscious freedom, all 
inward communion with self or with another is broken,— what wonder, 
then, if such a one remain unintelligible to himself and to others, 
and in his fearful wilderness of spirit wearies himself by idle words, 
to which no friendly echo responds, either from his own or from 
another's breast ? 

" To remain unintelligible to such an one is glory and honour 
before God and man. Barbarus huic ego sim, nec tali intelligar ullr 
This," concludes Schelling, " is a wish and prayer from which no 
man can keep himself." — Sammtliche Werke, I. 443. 



C— ON SPECIAL PLEADING IN HISTORY AND MORALS. 

A few emphatic sentences from Lord Macaulay's strictures on 
historical special pleading will repay perusal: — " This species of mis- 
representation abounds in the most valuable works of modern his- 
torians. Herodotus tells his story like a slovenly witness, who, heated 
by partialities and prejudices, unacquainted with the established rules 
of evidence, and uninstructed as to the obligations of his oath, con- 
founds what he imagines with what he has seen and heard, and 
brings out facts, reports, conjectures, and fancies in one mass. Hume 
is an accomplished advocate. Without positively asserting much more 
than he can prove, he gives prominence to all the circumstances 
which support his case ; he glides lightly over those which are un- 
favourable to it ; his own witnesses are applauded and encouraged ; 
the statements which seem to throw discredit on them are contro- 
verted ; the contradictions into which they fall are explained away ; 
a clear and connected abstract of their evidence is given. Every- 
thing that is offered on the other side is scrutinised with the utmost 
severity ; every suspicious circumstance is a ground for comment and 
invective ; what cannot be denied is extenuated, or passed by without 
notice ; concessions even are sometimes made ; but this insidious 
candour only increases the effect of the vast mass of sophistry. 

" We have mentioned Hume as the ablest and most popular writer 
of his class ; but the charge which we have brought against him is 
one to which all our most distinguished historians are in some degree 
obnoxious. Gibbon, in particular, deserves very severe censure." — 
Macaulay's Miscellaneous Writings — History. 

The reader may very advantageously carry along with him the 



30 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



above quoted just remarks, if he has occasion to travel into Hume's 
sceptical writings. Respecting these, where every feature of the 
author's character appears with intensified distinctness of expression, 
it is not too much to say that their influence, which had suffered 
suspended animation,* is now felt in almost every cultivated circle 
in Europe. Checked for a time under the empire of Kant and his 
successors, it has been revived by the German Darwinists (so-called), 
who are bent on evolving all that can be got from the theory of 
Evolution. Comte speaks of Hume as his own master — an intellectual 
debt all the more readily acknowledged, because Hume's treatment of 
most subjects leans towards the French, rather than the Teutonic, 
side of English speculation. The master's influence over numbers who, 
without being Comte's disciples, are addicted to thinking Positively 
upon questions connected with Mind and Morality, was never greater 
than at present. 

Here, therefore, the disciplined inquirer will obtain a prolific field 
of discovery, if he wishes to convince himself how little originality 
pervades the set of opinions just now in fashion. 

But the student of Hume ought surely to be a disciplined inquirer. 
Many senior residents at our Universities will, therefore, join me 
in regretting that his sceptical treatises should be so commonly found 
in the hands of very young men. So far as such readers are con- 
cerned, it does not much signify whether Hume's fallacies are due 
to onesidedness of intellect or (as has been said by a critic, once 
himself a doubter) whether he was influenced " by vanity, appetite, 
and the ambition of forming a sect of argnescents." An opinion 
scarcely libellous, considering what Hume has said respecting the 
validity of his own paradoxes. However this may appear, the fallacies 
remain fallacies, and are less easy of detection than they would have 
been were their author a systematic thinker, instead of a philo- 
sophical dilletante. Under any circumstances, it is not every aspirant 
to the " Round Table" for whom the quest after secret spells is fitted. 
The youthful knight has his own ward to keep, and needs help — 
not hindrance, much less betrayal — inasmuch as : — 

* In the Livraison of the Deux Mondes for November, 1856, M. Cucheval- 
Clarigny wrote thus : " Personne plus que David Hume n'a eprouve l'inconstance 
des jugemens humains. Apres avoir ete mis au rang des esprits qui ont fait le 
plus d'honneur a l'humanite', on le compte volontiers aujourd'hui parmi les 
corrupteurs de la raison et les apotres du mal." That another kind of interest 
has been more recently felt in Hume is evidenced by the republication of his 
works in America and England. While writing this note I learn that a new 
edition of the seldom-read Treatise on Human Nature will shortly appear, with 
notes by two well-known members of Balliol College. 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER I 



31 



" Tis his to struggle with that perilous age 
Which claims for manhood's vice the privilege 
Of boyhood ; — when young Dionysus seems 
All glorious as he burst upon the east, 
A jocund and a welcome conqueror ; 
And Aphrodite, sweet as from the sea 
She rose and floated in her pearly shell, 
A laughing girl ; — when lawless will erects 
Honour's gay temple on the mount of God, 
And meek obedience bears the coward's brand ; 
While Satan, in celestial panoply, 
With Sin, his lady, smiling by his side, 
Defies all heaven to arms ! " 

Hartley Coleridge's Poems, Vol. II., p. 202. 



D._ ON THE METHOD EMPLOYED IN THIS ESSAY. 

The advantages which ensue from this mode of " ranging round 
each topic" are well described by the late Sir B. Brodie (Psychological 
Inquiries, 1st series, p. 18). " Our minds are so constructed that we 
can keep the attention fixed on a particular object until we have, as it 
were, looked all around it ; and the mind that possesses this faculty 
in the greatest degree of perfection will take cognisance of relations 
of which another mind has no perception. It is this, much more than 
any difference in the abstract power of reasoning, which constitutes 
the vast difference which exists between the minds of different in- 
dividuals ; which distinguishes the far-sighted statesman from the 
shallow politician ; the sagacious and accomplished general from the 
mere disciplinarian. Such also is the history, not only of the poetic 
genius, but also of the genius of discovery in science. 1 I keep the 
subject,' said Sir Isaac Newton, ' constantly before me, and wait until 
the first dawnings open by little and little into a full light.' It was 
thus that, after long meditation, he was led to the invention of fluxions, 
and to the anticipation of the modern discovery of the combustibility 
of the diamond. It was thus that Harvey discovered the circulation 
of the blood ; and that those views were suggested to Davy, which 
are propounded in the Bakerian lecture of 1806, and which laid the 
foundation of that grand series of experimental researches which ter- 
minated in the decomposition of the earths and alkalies." 

Dr. Tyndall also considers the case of Newton (" Fragments of 
Science," p. 60). "Newton pondered all these things. He had a 
great power of pondering. He could look into the darkest subject 



32 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



until it became entirely luminous. How this light arises we cannot 
explain ; but, as a matter of fact, it does arise." Dr. Tyndall had 
before remarked on the question thus suggested, that " There is much 
in this process of pondering and its results which it is impossible to 
analyse. It is by a kind of inspiration that we rise from the wise and 
sedulous contemplation of facts to the principles on which they 
depend. The mind is, as it were, a photographic* plate, which is 
gradually cleansed by the effort to think rightly, and which when so 
cleansed, and not before, receives impressions from the light of truth. 
This passage from facts to principles is called induction, which in its 
highest form is inspiration ; but, to make it sure, the inward sight 
must be shown to be in accordance with outward fact. To prove or 
disprove the induction, we must resort to deduction and experiment." 
—Ibid, p. 57-8. 

This last remark concerns the process of verification which the 
accomplished writer discusses through several subsequent pages. 

Notwithstanding a passing observation of Dr. Tyndall' s that " this 
power of pondering facts is one with which the ancients could be but 
imperfectly acquainted," some readers will be struck by the thought 
that it forms the nearest approach which can be made by any 
inductive discoverer to the old philosophical method of Dialectic. 
Janet says, in a volume to which those who have not encountered it 
will thank me for introducing them, "La dialectique logique dans 
Platon est parfaitement conforme aux lois de la raison. Elle ne sert 
qu'a refuter les idees fausses, ou a eclaircir les idees donnees anterieure- 
ment par une sorte de synthese, qui, suivant les uns, n'est que le 
progres de la generalisation, et, selon nous, est le progres de l'intui- 
tion." (Etudes sur la Dialectique dans Platon et dans Hegel, p. 393.) 
For a more complete appreciation of what is here stated in few words, 
the student should peruse pp. 244, seq. The account given by Janet 
appears in some measure to coincide with Dr. Tyndall's idea, though 
perhaps the word "Intuition" might be more entirely approved by 
Schelling or Coleridge than by any Physicist. 

Be this as it may, Dr. Tyndall's outline of the Inductive process in 
its highest form is evidently one which describes the prerogative of 
Genius — the exercise of Imagination as distinguished from Fancy — 
the child, that is, of Reason, rather than a stray bantling of sportive 
wit. 

To bring his general conception within the grasp of every-day 
workers, and describe a procedure which may be adopted as a kind of 
practical rule or maxim, let us look at this subject in the following 
manner. 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER I. 



S3 



Suppose we take the example of a great idea ; that, for instance, of 
the constitution of Great Britain, or any other nation which subsists 
in tolerable freedom from revolutionary change. There are clearly 
two elements involved — one, Permanence ; the other, Progress. 
These, in the actual working constitution, form its factors, or moments 
(as they may be better termed) ; and in the idea or mental representa- 
tion of the same, we may liken them to complementary colours in the 
spectrum, which appear separately contrasted in tint, but blend together 
in a wave of white light. Now, our analysing faculty of mind is, in 
point of fact, our intellectual prism. It separates each bright and 
strong idea into elements so antagonistic as to be apparently incom- 
patible. Like clear yellow and shadowy violet, one component seems 
excellent in beauty, another its foil or opposite. To one class of 
minds truth consists in Permanence, and Progress is a note of evil 
omen. Of another class the contradictory is true. The real statesman 
alone knows that their blending is a question of measure and degree, 
of human affairs, — time, circumstance, and opportunity. 

We may ask with reason what gain accrues to the statesman by 
looking at his country's constitution from this point of sight ? Evi- 
dently a good deal. He will soon discern that practically it cannot 
exist in vigour if either factor be eliminated. Each is given in the 
analysis of his prolific idea, and, however great may seem the appa- 
rent incompatibility, both must be capable of co-existence and cor- 
relation. Now, there could be no synthesis if, on the one hand, Pro- 
gress did not imply a something which remains identical and in unity 
with itself, while it flourishes and grows ; — or, on the other hand, if 
Permanence were not safest, when its strength is manifested by its 
vital increase. Consequently, to grow is to continue essentially the 
same ; — to be permanent is to live and bear fresh fruit every passing- 
year. 

A precisely similar advantage accrues to the Ethical Philosopher from 
a process of the like description. He considers (it may be) the con- 
crete idea of moral activity. Obviously, there must be found in it an 
unfettered power of choice, and a conformity to the rule of moral 
law. Submitted to the analytic prism, the two elements come out at 
opposite poles in very decided contrast. At the pole of necessary con- 
formity we find what looks like Determinism ; — at the pole of choice 
appears its irreconcilable antagonist, a sense of Responsibility, logi- 
cally unexplained, but inalienable from our moral nature. And our 
Ethical inquirer finds the only possible synthesis of his two contrasted 
moments of morality in the deep truth that each righteous man is a 
Law unto himself. And hence it is, that the righteous shines out over 

3 



34 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



the lower world of mechanical arrangement — a faint, it may be, but still 
a visible image of the God who made him what he is.* 

By the same process of analysis and reconstruction the Natural 
Theologian arrives (as may be shown) at a synthesis of Faith and 
Eeason. Yet these two are antagonistic in the eyes both of the 
sceptic and the superstitious. Les extremes se touchent, and by 
both extremes faith is relegated to the region of sentimental aesthetics. 

* Compare with this the subjoined orison for a special gift of moral rectitude 
penned by Professor Huxley (Lay Sermons, p. 373). "I protest that if some 
great power would agree to make me always think what is true and do what is 
right, on condition of being turned into a sort of clock and wound up every 
morning before I got out of bed, I should instantly close with the offer. The only 
freedom I care about is the freedom to do right ; the freedom to do wrong I am 
ready to part with on the cheapest terms to any one who will take it of me." It 
seems wonderful that the talented writer fails to perceive that should his terms 
be granted the bargain would be dear indeed — it must take place at the expense 
of his Personality. He would have no choice left, consequently no rightness of 
choice. With the loss of his volition his manhood would be forfeited ; and the 
Huxley of our praise and blame must needs sink at once and for ever from a 
Person to a Thing — 

" Polled round in Earth's diurnal course 
With rocks, and stones, and trees." 

After all, we may trust that this outpouring of soul after mechanical goodness, 
is neither more nor less than a fresh rehearsal of the popular fallacy or fable of a 
learned and intelligent, but somewhat over-hasty, death-watch. The difference 
between the two myths is not great, and both owe their existence to the prolific 
fancy of Professor Huxley. About three years ago the teleological beetle specu- 
lated in a manner which would have grieved the soul of Aldrich or Whately 
respecting the purpose of a kitchen clock. The death-watch concluded, like a 
death-watch, and not like a logician, that the clock's final end was to tick. Man, 
as Bacon tells us, is the servant and interpreter of nature. Does any one feel 
sure that a death-watch is the servant and interpreter of kitchen timepieces ? 
Yet his inconsequent thinking served as an implement of Fate to "quail, crush, 
conclude, and quell " Teleology in general, and the Design argument for Natural 
Theism in particular. Now, a human Huxley clock always going morally right 
because it must, is equally conclusive against all freedom and all Conscience. 
Equally conclusive, we know, because equally true to Nature and to Fact. As 
conclusive as arguments against received biological tenets drawn from those great 
natural curiosities the Gorgon, the dragon of St. George, and the fire-breathing 
Chimeera, who united in her own fair person a lion, a dragon, and a goat. This 
latter well-known phenomenon may seem nearly as striking as any right-minded 
clock imaginable, and not much more incongruous. 

Many readers may be reminded of Amurath's Eing. But few probably will 
know, and fewer still recollect, Miss Edgeworth's clever comment upon it in 
"Rosamond." The book is unfortunately scarce, not having been reprinted 
along with "Early Lessons," therefore we add the extract ("Rosamond," vol. i., 
p. 148) :- 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER Z 



35 



Reason, say both, is Faith's natural enemy; and must fail to yield any 
expectation of future happiness in the presence of a righteous God, 
together with its long train of present hopes and fears. Our plain 
answer is that the true synthesis of Natural Theism lies in the chief 
primary fact of our human nature — the undeniable existence of its 
Reasonable Beliefs. They originate deep down, and we may affirm 
respecting the birth of each and all, as Dr. Tyndall affirms of the 
inward vision which dawns upon the philosophic mind when photo- 
graphically cleansed by its own efforts to think rightly, — "how this 
light arises we cannot explain, but as a matter of fact it does arise." 
In its degree it may be (to use Dr. Tyndall's word) "a kind of 
inspiration." And what endowment has a higher claim to such a 
representative kinship ? — what nobler gift can be conceived from God 
to man than a Belief of Reason ? Dr. Tyndall's further requirement 
that " the inward sight must be shown to be in accordance with the 
outward fact," a Natural Theologian may hope to meet by a sufficient 
verification. He may meet it in the case of this particular Belief by 
showing, as we shall try to show, our actual human experience of its 
working and its worth. 

We might pursue similar examples through the regions of Discovery 
and Production, but the three instances already adduced may fairly 
suffice. It is, perhaps, more interesting to observe the real gains 

"Do you remember, brother," said Laura, "your wish when you were reading 
that story in the 'Adventurer,' last week ? " 

" Not I. What wish ? ' ' said Godfrey. " What story ? ' ' 

"Don't you remember," said Laura, "when you were reading the story of 
Amurath and his ring, which always pressed his finger when he was going to do 
anything wrong ? " 

" Yes ; I wished to have such a ring," said Godfrey. 

" Well, a friend is as good as such a ring," said Eosamond ; " for a friend is, as 
somebody observed, a second conscience; I may call Laura my second conscience.^ 

" Mighty fine ! but I don't like secondary conscience ; a first conscience is, in 
my opinion, a better thing," said Godfrey. 

" You may have that too," said Eosamond. 

"Too ! but I'd rather have it alone," said Godfrey. "There is something so 
cowardly in not daring to stand alone." 

The lesson seems to be that second-hand goodness falls short of true goodness, 
and that the impulse to moral action must arise from within — so unmanly is every 
endeavour at shaking off, either by cowardice or by iinreflectiveness, the human 
burden and birthright of Eesponsibility. 

Amurath's ring was a mechanical conscience. Professor Huxley's clock is a 
mechanism in the outward form of a man. These two imaginations convey the 
useful lessons that neither Conscience nor Mankind are mere machines. A clock 
goes becaxise it must go its hourly round ; a man chooses which way, when, and 
whither he will go. 

3 A 



36 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



wliich accrue from pondering over an idea in the manner exemplified. 
How much political charlatanerie is at once disposed of when men 
distinctly acknowledge that two reputed incompatibilities, however 
useful as war-cries, are essentially conjoint elements in all truly 
statesmanlike action : what countless angry controversies die in the 
moral principle that each righteous man is a Law unto himself ! And 
not only to Natural Theology, but to other parts of knowledge, it is of 
the greatest utility to perceive with equal distinctness that Reason has 
its beliefs as well as Unreason ; and that when we accept reasonable 
beliefs as the basis of scientific investigation, we afiirm their value for 
the conduct and government of life. The true amount of that value 
as a mainspring of our hopeful activities is estimated on another 
page. Meantime, we may remark from the three examples above 
discussed, how regularly an idea of Reason, analysed into its comple- 
mentary factors, resumes a concrete form when we employ it as a 
maxim of practical life. The politician who separates progress from 
stability is really preparing his country for revolution. The man on 
whose heart the law is not written (like the necessity laid upon St. 
Paul *) is as yet imperfectly righteous. And so too, if in our Beliefs 
we lose sight of the gift that makes us human, we are likely to ring 
the changes between superstition, atheism, and effeminate senti- 
mentality. 

When, from results, we pass to the easiest method for attaining 
them, there seems but little to add to the extracts with which this 
note commenced. And if the object be clearly defined, the labour 
of the mental workshop need not be a severe discouragement. It is 
true that no man can take his Thought — the offspring of his inward 
Light — pull it to pieces, and reconstruct it, as he would deal with a 
thing of brass or iron. But every earnest ponderer may keep his 
prolific idea steadily in view, and hold conversations with himself 
respecting it. This is the well-known method by which Aristotle 
virtually obtains his conclusions before he finally proceeds to deduce 
them. From the same conception of Method, real thinking appears 
to Plato as a Dialogue without speech. And, doubtless, actual dis- 
cussion between two or more living men would be the surest way of 
arriving at the goal of insight, provided those most uncommon of all 
endowments, common sense and common honesty, could be assured 
to the dialecticians. f 

* 1 Corinthians ix. 16. 

f For a useful account of Plato's Dialogue in connection with Plato's philosophy, 
see "Introduction to the Eepublic," by Davies and Vaughan, pp. xxi.-xxivJ 
Cambridge, 1852. 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER I. 



37 



Thus much, then, may serve as an illustration of the task we are 
attempting, and of the means by which we hope to accomplish it. 
If achieved, it will form a contribution to the great work thus 
characterised by the Kector of Lincoln College from the University 
pulpit, as reported in the Oxford Undergraduates Journal for 
October 26, 1871 : " The Natural Theology of the last century is no 
longer found to be satisfactory in presence of the geological and 
biological sciences as they now stand. The answer that the sciences 
are wrong and the theologians are right does not admit of being 
discussed or refuted, for it is the answer of ignorance. The answer 
of the Catholic Church, which is to take refuge in its own authority, 
can only be practically tendered where there is an infallible living 
authority, as in the chair of S. Peter. It seems to be the business 
of the English Church especially — a Church which has never yet 
broken with reason or proscribed education — to fairly face these 
questions, to resume the Natural Theology of the past age, and to 
re-establish the synthesis of Science and Faith." 



E.— ON THE EFFECT OF CONSILIENT PBOOFS. 

The expressive word " Consilience " has been adopted on the 
authority of Dr. Whewell and Professor Pritchard, both of whom 
employ it in preference to the commoner expression convergence. 
Upon the force of consilient proofs, Dr. Whewell writes thus r — 

" The cases in which inductions from classes of facts altogether 
different have jumped together, belong only to the bjest established 
theories which the history of science contains. And as I shall have 
occasion to refer to this peculiar feature in their evidence, I will take 
the liberty of describing it by a particular phrase, and will term it 
the Consilience of Inductions. 

"It is exemplified principally in some of the greatest discoveries. 
Thus it was found by Newton .that the doctrine of the attraction of 
the sun varying according to the inverse square of the distance, 
which explained Kepler's Third Law of the proportionality of the 
cubes of the distances to the squares of the periodic times of the 
planets, explained also his First and Second Laws of the elliptical 
motion of each planet ; although no connexion of these laws had been 
visible before. Again, it appeared that the force of universal gravita- 
tion, which had been inferred from the perturbations of the moon and 
planets by the sun and by each other, also accounted for the fact, 
apparently altogether dissimilar and remote, of the precession of the 



38 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



equinoxes. Here was a most striking and surprising coincidence, 
which gave to the theory a stamp of truth beyond the power of 
ingenuity to counterfeit. 

. . . The theory of universal gravitation, and of the undula- 
tory theory of light, are indeed full of examples of this consilience of 
inductions. With regard to the latter, it has been justly asserted by 
Herschel, that the history of the undulatory theory was a succession 
of felicities. And it is precisely the unexpected coincidences of results 
drawn from distant parts of the subject which are properly thus 
described." ("Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences," B. XL, chap, 
v., s. 3.) 

And again, "It is true, the explanation of one set of facts may be 
of the same nature as the explanation of the other class ; but then, 
that the cause explains both classes, gives it a very different claim 
upon our attention and assent from that which it would have if it 
explained one class only. The very circumstance that the two 
explanations coincide, is a most weighty presumption in their favour. 
It is the testimony of two witnesses in behalf of the hypothesis ; and 
in proportion as these two witnesses are separate and independent, 
the conviction produced by their agreement is more and more com- 
plete. When the explanation of two kinds of phenomena, distinct, 
and not apparently connected, leads us to the same cause, such a 
coincidence does give a reality to the cause, which it has not while it 
merely accounts for those appearances which suggested the supposi- 
tion. This coincidence of propositions inferred from separate classes 
of facts, is exactly what we noticed in the last book, as one of the 
most decisive characteristics of a true theory, under the name of 
Consilience of Inductions. 

u That Newton's first rule of philosophizing, so understood, 
authorizes the inferences which he himself made, is really the ground 
on which they are so firmly believed by philosophers. Thus, when the 
doctrine of a gravity varying inversely as the square of the distance 
from the body, accounted at the same time for the relations of 
times and distances in the planetary orbits and for the amount of the 
moon's deflection from the tangent of her orbit, such a doctrine 
became most convincing : or, again, when the doctrine of the 
universal gravitation of all parts of matter, which explained so 
admirably the inequalities of the moon's motions, also gave a satis- 
factory account of a phenomenon utterly different — the precession of 
the equinoxes. And of the same kind is the evidence in favour of the 
undulatory theory of light, when the assumption of the length of an 
undulation, to which we are led by the colours of thin plates, is found 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER I. 



39 



to be identical with that length which explains the phenomena of 
diffraction; or when the hypothesis of transverse vibrations, suggested 
by the facts of polarization, explains also the laws of double refrac- 
tion. When such a convergence of two trains of induction points to 
the same spot, we can no longer suspect that we are wrong. Such 
an accumulation of proof really persuades us that we have to do with 
a vera causa. And if this kind of proof be multiplied, — if we again 
find other facts of a sort uncontemplated in framing our hypothesis, 
but yet clearly accounted for when we have adopted the supposition, 
— we are still further confirmed in our belief, and by such accumula- 
tion of proof we may be so far satisfied as to believe without 
conceiving it possible to doubt. In this case, when the validity of 
the opinion adopted by us has been repeatedly confirmed by its 
sufficiency in unforeseen cases, so that all doubt is removed and 
forgotten, the theoretical cause takes its place among the realities of 
the world, and becomes a true cause." (Ibid. B. XII., chap, xiii., 
art. 10.) 

The reader of this Essay will be pleased to remark as he proceeds 
that its argument is made up of a diversity of proofs (very many 
among them being inductive), and that they all lend each other mutual 
support and become consilient at last. 



CHAPTEE II. 
PHILOSOPHY OF DESIGN. 







" It is an assured truth, and a conclusion of experience, that a little 
or superficial knowledge of Philosophy may incline the mind of Man to 
Atheism, but a farther proceeding therein doth bring the mind back 
again to Religion : for in the entrance of Philosophy, when the second 
causes, which are next unto the senses, do offer themselves to the mind 
of man, if it dwell and stay there it may induce some oblivion of the 
highest Cause ; but when a man passeth on farther, and seeth the depend- 
ence of causes and the works of Providence ; then, according to the 
allegory of the poets, he will easily believe that the highest link of 
Nature's chain must needs be tied to the foot of Jupiter's chair." 

Lord Bacon's Advancement of Learning, Book I. 

" Deus sine dominio, providentia, et causis finalibus nihil alrud est 
quam fatum et natura. A caeca necessitate metaphysica, quae eadem est 
et semper et ubique, nulla oritur variatio. Tota rerum conditarum pro 
locis ac temporibus diversitas, ab ideis et voluntate entis necessario 
existentis solummodo oriri potuit." — Sir Isaac Newton, Scholium at close 
of Principia. 

' 1 Tax not my sloth that I 

Fold my arms beside the brook ; 
Each cloud that floated in the sky 
Writes a letter in my book. 

" There was never mystery 

But 'tis figured in the flowers ; 
Was never secret history 

But birds tell it in the bowers." 

Emerson's Poems. — The Apology. 



SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER II. 



This Chapter enters upon an examination of the kind of reasoning 
involved in the Argument from Design, and an inquiry into its special 
force. These investigations are accompanied by illustrative examples of 
Analogy in different shapes. The most powerful objections against this 
argument, and the various modes of stating it, are then described and 
criticised. 

A re-statement of the whole line of thought is followed by the outline 
of a proposed method for the constructive science of Natural Theology. 
The Chapter closes with a corollary on Efficient and Final Causes. 

Analysis — Argument from Design — Its PoiDular Form, and the Popular 
Objections raised against it — Art and Nature dissimilar — Organic 
and Inorganic Worlds, their Unlikeness and their Likenesses — Differ- 
ence between Similitude and Analogy, whether the latter be Illus- 
trative or Illative, and easiest ways of stating both Analogies. 

Scientific Difficulties — Charge of proving too much — Anthropomorphism 
and Dualism — Physical and Moral Antithesis — Was Paley to blame 
for introducing these Questions ? — Answer to the charge of proving 
too much — On how many points need Analogy rest 1 — Examples. 

Charge of proving too little — Design assumes Designer as a Foregone 
Conclusion — Process observed is test of Designer in Art, but fails in 
Nature — Criticism on these Objections. 

Baden Powell compared with Paley — Wide Yiews and Inductions — Argu- 
ment analysed into Gradations of Proof, Order, and Intelligence — 
Means, Ends, and Foresight — Physical and Moral Causation — Argu- 
ment analysed into various Lines of Proof — Their "Separate and 
Consilient Force. 

Value of Powell's views on Causation — Objections against some peculi- 
arities of his language — Natural Theology and Natural Religion 
distinguished — Professor Newman— Use of Words on subject of 
Design. 

Statement of the Constructive Method now to be employed — Corollary 
on Efficient and Final Causes. 

Additional Notes and Illustrations : — 

A. — On the abstract reasonings involved in Natural Theology. 

B. — On the phrase " Design implies a Designer." 

C. — Hume on the analogies of Art and Nature. 

D. — The Pantheistic consequences charged upon Physical Speculation. 

E. — The extent and divisions of the Science of Natural Theology. 

F. — On Teleology. 



CHAPTEE II. 



PHILOSOPHY OF DESIGN. 

The argument from Design in Nature lias been made familiar 
to most readers in Natural Theology by Paley's well-known 
book. It is probable that no argument has ever been more 
praised, and at the same time more strongly controverted. 
Our business lies, of course, with the controversy ; and we 
must say a few words on our present mode of dealing with it. 

Nothing could be more useless than to repeat illustrative 
examples of Design already thrice told by an endless variety 
of treatises. Of so wide a subject everything may be quoted 
as an illustration, from a pebble to a world, if only the 
principle illustrated — the pivot on which the argument turns — 
be understood and admitted. In modern times, this turning- 
point is precisely the centre of the dispute. Untrained minds 
misapprehend the meaning of the word Design, and are 
further still from apprehending the real force of argument 
from analogy. And when these subjects come to be discussed 
by skilled writers, various questions are always raised which 
generally issue in irreconcilable differences of opinion. 

Our plan here will be to take the argument in its best- 
known shape, and examine it from the points of view occupied 
by several classes of objectors, beginning, as is reasonable, 
with the most popular difficulties and misapprehensions. It 
does not seem necessary to load the page with references to 
controversialists of the ordinary sort, particularly as we 
endeavour to look at the whole question through their eyes. 

Respecting the more philosophic questions it is necessary to 



46 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



observe, that the Evolution-theory will not form a topic of the 
present chapter. It is excluded for two reasons. One, that 
we are now trying to put a value on the argument from Design 
per se, and not to compare it with rival theories. The other 
reason springs from the subject of Evolution itself — it is too 
extensive to be thus briefly treated — and the sum of this Essay 
must be taken together as furnishing a counter statement to 
the manner in which it has been employed by certain of its 
ardent advocates.* 

We hope for a further advantage from the method proposed. 
The cause of truth ought to gain from being looked at on 
more than one side ; and, whatever be the worth and true 
effect of reasoning from Design, we may expect by this method 
to display it adequately. 

The word itself, like all figurative terms — or words used in 
a secondary sense — is by no means free from ambiguity. It 
has, in common parlance, several shades of signification. 
Design being the centre of Paley's argument, and containing 
the one idea which gives force to all the rest: his first object 
was to fix the sense in which he employed it. He did so by 
using an illustration. 

To explain by comparison is always a popular resource, 
some serious drawbacks notwithstanding. Almost every one 
prefers that an author should use a sparkling similitude 
which tells a great deal, rather than write what looks like a 
grammar and dictionary of his science. Analysis and induc- 
tion require thought on the part of him who employs them 
— thought also on the part of a reader determined to under- 
stand what he reads. Paley saw all this thoroughly, and 
at the beginning of his book employed the now celebrated 
comparison taken from a watchmaker and a watch. His 
judgment received support from the popularity he en- 
joyed, and from the way in which everybody borrowed his 
illustration, f 

* See more particularly Chapter V., " Production and its Law." 

f Most literary people are aware that it was borrowed by Paley him- 
self. A. reference very accessible to ordinary readers may be made to 
Knight's English Cyclopaedia, Article Nieuwentyt. " A work," says the 



PHILOSOPHY OF DESIGN. 



47 



Yet Paley's deference to the popular understanding gave 
rise to the first general misapprehension of his treatise. He 
sets out from a kind of surprise — the surprise his readers 
would feel at finding a watch upon a heath. Now this feeling 
was immediately alleged as a conclusive objection against 
Paley's comparison, and as a ground for distrusting the whole 
argument founded upon it. The world, it was said, cannot be 
likened to a watch, nor yet to any other sort of mechanism.. 
Between things natural, and the things which men make, the 
difference is not a mere contrast of perfection with imper- 
fection. The real reason why we are surprised to see Paley's 
watch lying on a moor — and not at all surprised to see Paley's 

biographer, "was published by him at Amsterdam in 1715, in one volume 
4to, entitled ' The right use of Contemplating the Works of the Creator' : 
the object of the author is first to convince atheists of the existence of a 
supreme and benevolent Creator, by contemplating the mechanism of the 
heavens, the structure of animals, etc. ; and, secondly, to remove the 
doubts of deists concerning revealed religion. It was originally pub- 
lished in Dutch, but has passed through several editions, in German, 
French, and English. The English editions, translated by Chamber- 
layne, under the title of the ' Religious Philosopher,' appeared at London 
in 1718-19 and 1730, in three vols. 8vo. This work, as was first pointed 
out in the Athenozum for 1848, pp. 803, 907, 930, served as the basis for 
Paley's i Natural Theology, ' the general argument and many of the illus- 
trations in that remarkable work being directly copied — and without the 
slightest acknowledgment, though Paley was acquainted with the book — 
from the ' Religious Philosopher.' " 

Lord Brougham, who does not appear to have seen Bernard Nieuwen- 
tyt's book, believes that Derham supplied the fountain from which Paley 
drank so freely. Apparently he used both. 

To this note it may be added that the want of Natural Philosophy 
under which the Archdeacon himself laboured, has been recently com- 
mented on in the following terms : — 

' ' Paley kicked his foot unconcernedly against the stone he found on 
the heath ; for anything he knew, he says, it might have been there for 
ever. Geology was then a practically unknown science, or he might have 
found epochs of history in the stone, and evidence of all manner of 
special creations for man's benefit. But Paley was no natural philoso- 
pher, only a half-learned theologian, who skimmed over all difficulties, 
and produced a book which has done immense harm in leading English- 
men to anthropomorphic conceptions of God." — Report of an Address by 
A. J. Ellis, President of the Philological Society, in an American Neivs- 
paper (the Index) for August 10th, 1872. 



48 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



stone lying beside it — springs from this very difference. And 
though the history of a stone, common, coarse, and worthless, 
is really more wonderful than the history of any watch, and 
though the stone has an infinitely longer pedigree, we should 
never speak or think of it in the same way. We feel that the 
objects are dissimilar, and our surprise testifies the fact. A 
heath is given up to nature, a watchmaker's shop to art. The 
watch is out of place among stones, the stone among watches. 
The idea raised at the outset, therefore, is that Art and Nature 
would seem to be thoroughly unlike. 

At a first view of the subject, these remarks appear open to 
one obvious rejoinder. The sort of surprised feeling which 
Paley describes, is not in itself a proof of real unlikeness. A 
weed is a plant out of place ; we do not expect thriving crops 
of cabbage or teazle in a carefully kept rose-garden, nor goose- 
berry bushes amongst azaleas. The proudest flower that 
blossoms is a weed in a vineyard, in a plot of opium-poppies, 
or mixed with other herbs medicinal. So, too, a rough diamond 
would not be out of place in a watchmaker's shop ; but if we saw 
a stone of no selling value inside a case of watches we should 
certainly experience some surprise. And the feeling would 
remain even though we were quite unable to explain how the 
poor pebble differed chemically from the priceless gem. We 
know that the latter would appear to a jeweller's customers 
like a rose among flowers, but the former worthless as a weed. 
The jeweller would consider it a trespasser fit only to be 
turned out of doors. 

But does this rejoinder satisfactorily dispose of the diffi- 
culty ? Is not the true reason why we might observe with 
some wonder a watch lying upon a moor resolvable into the 
fact of our knowing its use and being quite sure that some one 
had dropped it there? (a) A savage might not feel in the least 

(a) So Hume (Inquiry, Section IV.): " A man, finding a watch or any- 
other machine in a desert island, would conclude that there had once 
been men in that island." And again (Id. Section V.): " A man who 
should find in a desert country the remains of pompous buildings, would 
conclude that the country had in ancient times been cultivated by civi- 
lized inhabitants but did nothing of this nature occur to him, he could 



PHILOSOPHY OF DESIGN. 



4& 



surprised, unless, indeed, he happened to suppose that the 
watch was a kind of animal he had never seen before, and took 
notice of the singular sound it made. In this event he would 
probably break it to pieces without discovering the purpose or 
mode of its contrivance. 

Throughout all disputatious matter, a thought on one side 
leads to a thought upon the other — at least, amongst tolerably 
fair people. The idea which we have just imagined our savage 
to entertain respecting a watch suggests a further question. 
What effect ought in reason to be produced upon cultured 
minds by the contemplation of some unknown or half-compre- 
hended phenomenon? — a question this, closely bearing upon 
the whole subject under discussion. Now surely it is from in- 
telligent wonder — a contrast of the unknown with what we 
already know — a feeling of mystery to be solved by us, that 
inquiry and science perpetually spring. A fossil-shell, the 
former habitation of a marine animal, found upon some 
mountain top, presents a contrast and a mystery of this kind. 
Moreover, the highest triumph of inquiring science is the 
discovery, not of difference anywhere, but rather of re- 
semblances in objects apparently diverse. An uninquiring 
mind will never perceive any common attribute, either ideal 
or structural, between a stone and a watch. 

But did Paley himself perceive any such community . of 
attribute ? So far does he appear from the perception that 
he speaks of the stone as an "unorganised, unmechanised 
substance, without mark or indication of contrivance," and 
adds, " It might be difficult to show that such substance could 
not have existed from eternity." Paley 's day was meagre in 
natural science, and Paley was as meagrely acquainted with its 
results as he was with metaphysical philosophy. Few people, 
however, even now-a-days, know enough of the laws which 
govern inorganic products to find their investigation a slight 
or easy task. For a purpose of comparison with any human 

never form such an inference." The inference is, as Hume says, from 
effect to cause — a subject which he is. here investigating more, suo. To the 
nature of this inference T have found reason for recurring more than 
once. 

4 



50 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



work or mechanism, most inquirers will prefer having recourse 
with Paley to the world of organisation. The flower and 
fructification of a plant or shrub growing on the heath beside 
Paley 's watch, though carelessly passed over a thousand times, 
and exciting no surprise from anything unusual in its habitat, 
will, when observed, raise the most sincere admiration. And 
the same may be said of the bony skeleton of the lizard* 
racing round plant and shrub, the forehand of the mole which 
burrows beneath them, and the wing of the bat circling 
nightly in upper air. 

Take, then, replies the objector, an organism, vegetable or 
animal, whichever you or Paley may prefer. The difficulty 
formerly urged at once recurs, slightly altered in shape, but 
with augmented point and force. Your organisms are not put 
together like the parts of a watch (undique collatis membris) 
— brass from this place, steel from that, and so on, with china 
dial-plate, covering-glass, and gold case. All these things 
were apart in nature, they were severally chosen, manipulated > 
and brought together. What we see is a successful union ol 
materials possessing inherent adaptation to definite purposes — 
such as the freedom of brass from rust, or the superior elasticity 
of steel, qualities indicating the skill and workmanlike know- 
ledge of some human artificer, and showing by their utilization 
the truth of what was before asserted. Watches and worlds, 
the products of Art and of Nature, are obviously and thoroughly 
unlike. 

By way of answer, it might be observed that in organization 
we do really see very distinct constituents combined. In a 
plant, for instance, there is the combination of a growing 
point, a humus or pabulum that feeds it, and the stimuli, air, 
water, light, and all the " skiey influences " by which its 

* A striking peculiarity of this skeleton is thus described by Professor 
Huxley (" Manual of the Anatomy of Vertebrated Animals," p. 217). 
' ' In many Lacertilia (Lacertce, Iguanm, Geckos) the caudal vertebrae have 
a very singular structure, the middle of each being traversed by a thin, 
unossified, transverse septum. The vertebra naturally breaks with great 
readiness through the plane of the septum, and when such lizards are 
seized by the tail, that appendage is pretty certain to part at one of these 
weak points." 



PHILOSOPHY OF DESIGN. 



51 



passive vitality is excited and sustained. We see plant life, 
by reason of these concurrent adaptations, swelling into leaf, 
stem, bud, corolla, and fruit, throughout all the brighter tribes 
of vegetable beauty that bloom apparent to the unassisted eye. 
And the like holds true respecting animals, but with increased 
variety and complication of conditions, made necessary by 
their higher mode of existence. The marvels of their many 
powers, habits, and perfections of form and movement are 
great, but greater still the vast multitude of ministering aids 
put in requisition to ensure their earliest appearance and after 
continuance in life and enjoyment. When we contemplate 
microscopic Nature, a like sweep of combination is again evi- 
dent to the skilful naturalist, and excites his constant wonder, 
especially when observed in connection with the exquisite 
finish of minute creatures and their infinitesimal parts, both 
alike unperceived by our ordinary human senses. And a 
similar idea of invisible, and perhaps almost incomprehensible, 
harmony might be raised by a consideration of the elements, 
metallic and non-metallic, brought together in numberless 
inorganic productions, as well as of the forces which bind 
them in hard cohesion, and give them such properties as 
we may discover in the commonest block of granite. And 
what if we could extend our field of view to a world — to the 
universe ? 

The answer suggested by this last paragraph has its value, 
and the principle involved in it will occur for our scrutiny 
further on. But at present this train of thought, if pursued, 
might be likened to the weed we spoke of, — it would not be 
altogether in place here. The truth is that the whole objection 
thus parried appears more out of place still, and is therefore 
itself not a flower, but a weed of popular rhetoric. And the 
reason of its irrelevancy is plain. Paley's argument does not 
really turn upon the similitude of any two objects of simple 
apprehension, but upon an analogical comparison; the dis- 
covery, that is, of the likeness between two ratios, a process 
known in common life under the name of Proportion. Hence 
it is from the illative force of analogy that this topic of Design 
derives its value. The analogy does, in fact, serve a double 

4 A 



52 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



purpose — first to explain, and secondly to prove. We had 
better look at it from both points of view. 

The easiest method for making an illustrative analogy 
intelligible is to state it in old-fashioned style as a rule of three 
sum ; the fourth term being the conclusion which completes it. 
" As a watch is to the watchmaker, so is creation, (exemplified 
by such and such a specimen,) to its Creator." That is to say, 
there exists some ratio or relation connecting the watch and 
the watchmaker, which exists also between the world and its 
Creator, 

To see its illative force used as an argument, we need only 
alter the position of the four terms, and state our proportion as 
is more usual in modern day. " As the watch is to such and 
such specimens of creation, so is the watchmaker to the Author 
of any and all of these things." 

In the first statement Paley's similitude is displayed in full 
as an asserted illustration of Design. The watch is a thing 
contrived — that is, a design realized, and the maker is its 
contriver. Just so, is the world a Design realized by its 
Creator. And it appears plainly implied in the assertion, that 
even as the little watch shows the limited power and in- 
telligence of its maker, so the vast and unfathomable universe 
illustrates the infinite power and wisdom of its incompre- 
hensible Author. 

The second mode of statement displays the force of Paley's 
analogy viewed as a chain of reasoning. The watch is not like 
the world, but there is something in common between them, 
and this something it is Paley's purpose, and the purpose of 
his various continuators, to show at the greatest convenient 
length. Now such community of character must be sufficient 
to establish a further community still. When we see a watch 
we are sure it had a designer, — the watchmaker; and here, 
again, Paley means to argue that from every example of con- 
trivance which we can adduce and examine, the same inference 
ensues, and always must ensue. Therefore (he concludes) from 
the immeasurable designed world we infer the world's omnipo- 
tent Designer. 

The chief Divine attributes (as, for example, omnipotence) 



PHILOSOPHY OF DESIGN. 



53 



are dwelt upon by Paley towards the close of his treatise. But 
it seems well to insert the adjective at once. Most thinking 
persons admit that whoever believes in a Creator may find 
from the physical Cosmos and its 

" Mysterious worlds untravelled by the sun," 

ample reason for justifying the noblest of such adjectives. 
They generally go further, and allow that any Theist finds in 
these endless marvels a full confirmation of his faith — there 
is, as Coleridge says, a whole universe at hand to ratify the 
decision. But what many educated people who concede thus 
much disallow, is the sufficient witness of Design standing 
by itself to prove what it may fairly corroborate or even 
extend. To illustrate, confirm, or widen what is already 
held a truth is one thing ; to serve as its sole sufficient wit- 
ness is another. This conclusiveness some deny, and more 
scruple to affirm. And one of the drawbacks in arguing 
from analogy seems to be, that all except the most philosophi- 
cally trained minds experience a sort of hesitation in estimating 
its force — a hesitation which they are at a loss to define in 
words. Consequently, the attack upon its adequacy is always 
difficult to answer ; so many various shades of negation must 
be classed together for brevity's sake, and met by one or two 
general lines of defence. The safest way, probably, is to make 
the negative classes as wide as possible, and to put the scien- 
tific doubts in their most fatal form of expression. And 
it appears hard to imagine anything really destructive of 
evidence which may not be brought under one of the two 
following heads. There may be, first, a failure of evidence 
when it is not strong enough in its facts and circumstances to 
justify the conclusion drawn — when, in short, it proves too 
little. Secondly, it is worthless, if its acceptance so damages 
the position occupied by those who employ it, that their pur- 
pose is thereby destroyed, their locus standi demolished — in 
other words, they have proved too much. 

May we not, then, presume it impossible to bring worse 
charges against any argument than whatever can be urged in 
support of these two accusations ? And we will first put the 



54 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



well-known analogy on its trial for proving too much, because 
it is from anxiety to avoid this charge that most analogical 
reasoners are apt to risk proving too little. 

Admit, say Paley's most decided antagonists, the relevancy 
of an argument from human art. It must be taken to show 
the Creator of the Universe as Theists conceive and acknow- 
ledge Him. Let us at once ask in what light He is thereby 
represented ? Is it not, so to speak, as a supreme Anthropo- 
morphic (b) Craftsman sketching a vast plan or design, and 
moulding the materials necessary for its realization ? We 
begin with the remark that His work — the world --must show 

(6) "God," says Dogberry, 11 is a good Man." So others besides 
Dogberry. 

Curiously enough, the charge of Anthropomorphism has been brought 
by a most eminent naturalist against the greatest authorities on Natural 
Selection. 

M. Edouard Claparede writes as follows in the "Archives des Sciences 
Physiques et Naturelles" for 1870 :— 

" Mon but est seulement de montrer que les armes dont M. Wallace se 
sert victorieusement pour attaquer le due d'Argyll, se retournent contre 
lui-meme. Sans doute, e'est un pur anthropomorphisme que de supposer 
chez un Cre'ateur un sentiment du Beau entierement semblable au notre, 
et une telle hypothese n'a rien a faire avec la science. Mais cet autre an- 
thropomorphisme par lequel les Darwinistes supposent chez les oiseaux 
un sens du Beau identique au notre, est il plus justifie' ? Soit M. Darwin, 
soit M. Wallace, expliquent la formation de la belle voix et du beau plu- 
mage chez les oiseaux males par selection sexuelle. Les femelles sont 
censees donner toujours la preference aux males, qui, au point de vue 
humain, ont la plus belle voix et les plus brillantes couleurs. Au con- 
traire, chez toutes les especes a cri desagreable pour l'oreille humaine et 
a couleur sombre, la nature du cri comme de la couleur a du sa formation 
a une autre forme de selection que la selection sexuelle. Quel oubli de 
1'antique dicton : Be gustibus et coloribus non est disputandum ! Si ce die- 
ton a e'te reconnu vrai chez toutes les nations civilisees, il acquiert une 
force bien autrement grande lorsqu'il s'agit de son application a des 
oiseaux. Serait il absurde de supposer chez certains oiseaux un gout pro- 
nonce pour les couleurs sombres, comme ce gout existe chez beaucoup 
d'hommes 1 Et alors ne devient-il pas possible, contrairement a MM. 
Darwin et Wallace, d'expliquer la couleur terne de certaines especes par 
selection sexuelle ? N'en peut-il pas etre de meme pour la voix criarde 
de tel ou tel volatile ? Certes, il est daugereux de baser un edifice sur 
quelque chose d'aussi subjectif qu'un sentiment, quelque soit du reste la 
nature de Fetre chez lequel on le suppose plus ou moins gratuitement, 
oiseau ou Createur !" (pp. 175-6.). 



PHILOSOPHY OF DESIGN. 



55 



some traces of that plastic process and the hand of its Moulder. 
The requirement seems just and reasonable, and is commonly 
answered by an appeal to what have been termed the records 
of creation, the structure of the heavens, and the structure of 
the earth. Thus, for example, we are referred to Geology and 
Palaeontology, and are led from age to age, and type to type. 
In passing from one formation to another we seem (as Goethe 
said) to catch Nature in the fact. At all events the plastic 
process is everywhere traceable, and to its evidences the Theist 
points with triumph. 

But no intelligent objector can stop here. He will next 
inquire what on theistic principles was the origin of this 
material substance so constantly undergoing transformation. 
Most sceptical thinkers put the inquiry in a trenchant manner ; 
they not only demand to be answered, but they prescribe 
beforehand the sort of answer to be returned. It is useless, 
they tell us, to speak of archetypes existing in the Divine mind, 
and to illustrate them by the creative thought of musician 
or sculptor, of painter or of poet. The hard, coarse world 
must be looked at as it is : an actual material habitation for 
sorrowing and sinful human creatures ; its physical conditions, 
imperfect in that respect, unhappily corresponding too well 
with the low moralities of its tenants. 

Now, they say, if we examine Paley's common-sense analogy 
no one can at all doubt what answer is suggested, there. The 
steel of the watch-spring, the brass of the wheel- work, and 
other materials for all the curious mechanical contrivances 
required, were taken into account by the watch-designer when 
he formed his design. Had it been otherwise he could not 
have calculated on finding ^ the necessary strength, elasticity, 
resistance to rust, and other properties on which Paley dwells 
so distinctly. In like manner, it has been said by some 
physical science Christians since Paley's time : " Let matter and 
its primary properties be presupposed, and the argument from 
Design is easy." True, but it seems quite as easy to suppose 
the world itself eternal. And we know that this supposition 
was adopted by pagan philosophers, to whom it appeared the 
easiest of all beliefs. 



56 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



But other philosophic pagans, holding clearly that the 
world had a beginning, conceived its First Cause to be like 
Paley's Designer — analogous to an earthly workman. They 
carried out the analogy thoroughly — more thoroughly than 
modern writers, and believed both Artificer and the matter 
from which He shaped the visible universe, self-subsistent, 
indestructible, and co-eternal. 

In this eternity of matter and its native inflexibilities, these 
great heathen thinkers found an apology for what they con- 
sidered the failure of creative power — misshapen things, mon- 
strosities, and imperfections. The Creator never desired them, 
but His will was thwarted by the material He worked in. 
Against this dualism the early Fathers protested. Will the 
modern Theist (his assailants ask) deny himself, and affirm 
two independent and self-existent principles ; or will he deny 
the parallelism asserted in Paley's analogy ? Can he con- 
scientiously believe that its issue is a worthy representation of 
the Divine and omnipotent Creator ? If not, it has failed by 
proving too much(c). 

(c) If any one desires to see how early and how persistently this diffi- 
culty attached itself to the Design Analogy, I may be permitted to refer 
him to a thin volume of my own, entitled " Right and Wrong," pp. 17-22 
(text and notes), and Appendix, pp. 58-60. 

A similar Dualism (coupled with the charge of Anthropomorphism) is 
frequently urged against Natural Theology at the present day. The al- 
ternative proposed has been called Monism. The fixed unyielding realm 
of Abiology (inorganic nature) is taken as the type of the universe. The 
sole supposable Divine principle (or Spirit) is identified with its law, 
which is in turn pronounced identical with philosophical necessity — that 
is to say, a necessity not imposed by or flowing from the Divine will, but 
a necessity which annihilates the possibility of all will. The Divine prin- 
ciple thus supposed is simply that law or, force which is embodied in the 
mechanism of the universe. 

Professor Haeckel of Jena is the author of a book which has been 
styled in Germany, " The Bible of Darwinism." The following passages 
will show how he treats the subject under consideration in the text. He 
writes (Generelle Morphologie der Organismen, Book II. cap. vi. sec. 2, 
" On Creation") to the following effect : — 

' ' The conception or Creation is either altogether unimaginable, or 
at least perfectly inconsistent with that pure intuition of Nature founded 
on an empirical basis. In Abiology a creation is no longer anywhere 
spoken of at all, and it is in Biology only that people are still closely 



PHILOSOPHY OF DESIGN. 



57 



There is one general reflection which may fairly strike the 
honest and ingenuous mind respecting the difficulties thus 

wrapped up in this error. The conception of creation is perfectly unima- 
ginable, if by it is understood ' an origination of something out of nothing.' 
This acceptation is quite incompatible with one of the first and chiefest 
of Nature's laws — one, indeed, universally acknowledged — namely, with 
the great law, that all matter is eternal." (Yol. i. p. 171.) 

"Now if the conception of such an immaterial force, discoverable 
exterior to matter, independent of, yet nevertheless acting upon it, is 
absolutely inadmissible and inconceivable in itself, then so, too, becomes 
the conception of a creative power from our point of view ; and all the 
more so, since with it are united the most untenable teleological concep- 
tions, and the most palpable Anthropomorphism." . . . . " In all 
these teleological conceptions, and similarly in all histories of creation 
which the poetical phantasy of men has produced, gross Anthropomor- 
phism is so evident, that we may leave the denial of this Creation-idea to 
the insight of any general reader who thinks for himself, and is not too far 
involved in traditional prejudices." .... " A creation of organisms 
is, therefore, partly quite unimaginable, partly in such complete contradic- 
tion to all knowledge of nature empirically gained, that we cannot in any 
case allow ourselves to end by accepting this hypothesis. There remains, 
consequently, nothing else but to suppose a spontaneous origination of the 
simplest organisms, from which all more perfect ones developed them- 
selves by gradual metamorphosis — that is to say, a self-forming or self-con- 
figuration of matter into organization, which is generally called primordial 
production or spontaneous generation (generatio cequivoca). (Ibid. 173-4.) 

Haeckel commences his section upon Dualism and Monism (Book I. cap. 
iv. section 6), with the following quotation from August Schleicher (die 
Darwinische Theorie und die Sprachwissenschaft : Weimar, 1863, p. 8) :— 

1 1 The tendency of modern thought is undeniably towards Monism. 
Dualism — whether you are pleased to define it as the contrast of spirit 
and nature, of contents and form, of appearance and reality — is no longer 
a firm ground to stand upon, if we wish to survey the field of modern 
science. To the latter there is no matter without spirit {i.e. without the 
unavoidable necessity that governs it), nor, on the other hand, is there 
any spirit without matter. We might say, perhaps, that there is neither 
matter nor spirit in the usual acceptation of the words, but only a some- 
thing which is the one and the other at the same time. To charge this 
view — which is founded on observation — with materialism, is equally 
unjust as to lay it at the door of spiritualism." 

Haeckel concludes this section by avowing an unalterable conviction of 
the truth of Monism, with which his mind is thoroughly penetrated. 

The extracts above given will explain the value of those distinctions 
respecting Law and Causation, which are drawn in the latter part of this 
chapter. The wider subject pertains, however, to Chapter V., where it 
is discussed at some length. 



58 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



raised. Who can help seeing that several of them lie equally 
against all rational theories which have ever been suggested 
to account for the origin of that sorrow and evil which we 
see and acknowledge everywhere ? And does not the same 
remark apply to every attempt at solving the antithesis of 
mind and matter % Some thoughtful men have believed that 
they could see their way to a solution ; others believe it alto- 
gether above human reason, and point with a kind of triumph 
to the failures of philosophy. However this may be, the 
mournful moral enigma,* and the unexplained antithesis 
underlying our knowledge of nature, attach themselves equally 
to every possible conception of the universe, religious or irre- 
ligious, common-sense or metaphysical. They have no special 
connection with our argument from Design, and ought not in 
fairness to be brought as objections against it. 

The more real question just now is, whether Paley's me- 
chanical analogy was to blame for introducing the problem 
of cosmical matter into the discussion. 

On this question the opinions of competent and unprejudiced 
judges disagree. By an eminent and accomplished writer the 
case is summed up as follows, in the Harveian Oration for 1865. 
Having previously included the material factor under mechani- 
cal adaptation as distinguished from art in the highest sense, Dr. 
Acland goes on to say (page 13) : " The illustration of the watch so 
quaintly employed by Nieuwentyt, and so entirely appropriated 
by Paley, only in a coarse way suggests the parallel between 
infinite art and common mechanical skill. It has done some mis- 
chief to the cause it advocates, by making familiar a rude illus- 
tration, which minds without imagination, or void of construc- 
tive power, have accepted as a recognised explanation of the 
method of operation by an Infinite Creative Will." 

Paley's critics should however observe, that he did not 
himself intend the objectionable inference. Probably he never 
even perceived that it might be drawn from his comparison. 

* Many readers may be pleased by a perusal of Lord Brougham's 
' ' Dissertation on the Origin of Evil." It gives an account of various 
hypotheses, and ends with some interesting remarks. See his " Disserta- 
tions on Subjects of Science connected with Natural Theology," vol. ii. 



PHILOSOPHY OF DESIGN. 



59 



Abstract inquiries connected with Theism, he banished to the 
end of his book, where they are discussed in a manner little 
calculated to satisfy any readers who have ever felt them as 
substantial difficulties. * But then, he would most likely have 
referred these persons to the writings of professed metaphysi- 
cians. It may be wise for us to take warning both by what 
Paley did and by what he left undone, Some deeper questions 
are indispensable to the argument from Design, but we shall 
follow his example so far as to avoid such disquisitions as were 
current in his day under the name of metaphysics. On 
the other hand we shall draw the required data from that 
critical Fact-philosophy of Mind and Human Nature, which 
forms to so many thinkers the birth-star of a new science, one 
amongst the rising hopes of our nineteenth century. 

Meantime, our business on hand is to rebut the present 
accusation of proving too much, brought against Paley 's analogy. 
We shall try to complete our answer by setting his argument 
in the point of view under which he evidently meant it to be 
looked at. 

Either as an illustration or as a means of proof, Analogy 
need not hold in more than a single point ; provided only that 
this single point is clear and well-established — resting, for 
example, on a moral law or a causal nexus. Any one who 
desires to make an analytical investigation into this law of 
inference will receive valuable aid from Ueberwesf's Logic, 
§§131 and 2, particularly if compared with § 129. 

To a common-sense mind we may give sufficient satisfaction 
by adducing one or two good analogies. Thus, for instance, 
the duties of a religious minister are often explained by saying 
that he ought to be the shepherd of his flock ; that is, his 
relation to his people ought to resemble that of the shepherd 
to his sheep. We all understand how truly is here expressed 
a world of watchful care. But are all points of the relation to 

* Even Lord Brougham, whom no one will accuse of a too ardent 
addiction to metaphysical pursuits, chides Paley very severely for this 
neglect. Dr. Whewell's censure is more grave. Passages from these 
criticisms are given in Additional Note A, with some explanations which 
may conduce to a clear insight of what is meant by bad metaphysics, 
particularly in relation to the subject before us. 



60 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



be implied ? May the spiritual pastor ever become the slayer 
or the salesman of his flock ? 

Again, — writers upon political subjects some years ago used 
very commonly to quote from the days of Alfred the Great sup- 
posed precedents for our most modern constitutional dicta. In 
many cases the thing defended was a legitimate outgrowth of 
the precedeut cited ; but to pronounce the two identical seemed 
sufficiently absurd. In confutation of some such absurdities, 
clever men argued that the body corporate has, like the indivi- 
dual body, its childhood, growth, and maturity. The argument 
became generally accepted, and got extended to the distinc- 
tions between healthy increase and sickly degeneration, with 
other like inferences. The further conclusion was next drawn, 
that every national body resembles the human frame in a 
necessary decay, and inevitable mortality. Now, whatever 
opinion may be entertained as to the fact of a death-rate of 
nationalities, nothing seems more certain than that those 
who first employed the comparison never contemplated this 
particular corollary. Whether their first use of it was wise 
or unwise, has been, like Paley's Watch-analogy, a matter of 
some considerable dispute. 

The general subject of Analogy, rightly or wrongly extended, 
admits of wider illustration. 

Simile and metaphor are often compressed analogies, and 
many of them gain in beauty from expansion. Pope's cele- 
brated comparison of the traveller ascending the Alps with the 
student who scales the heights of literature ; and how 

" Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise ; " 

is a good example of a poet's successfully expanding his own 
thought. Still more exquisitively true to nature is the final 
parallel drawn in Coleridge's description of the divided friends 
who stood apart, — 

" Like cliffs which had been rent asunder," 

while the marks of a former union lingered indestructible. 
Perhaps few readers of " Christabel " ever looked at Lodore, 
and "its scars remaining," without feeling how aptly they 



PHILOSOPHY OF DESIGN. 



61 



represent traces of thought and affection engraved upon the 
soul of man, deeper and more imperishable than the primgeval 
rocks between which the "dreary sea" now flows. 

The wonderful force of many among Shakespeare's meta- 
phors is derived from compressed analogy. But by expanding 

11 The slings and arrows of outrageous Fortune," 

we should form no better conception of the goddess ; and the 
next line, 

" Or to take arms against a sea of troubles," 

might easily be turned into nonsense ! Like Paley's " watch/' 
the " sea " holds true only in one point. Shakespeare had 
before his eye the image of multitudinous vastness. But what 
arms could we take up to stem the billows of a swelling 
tide ? 

No one can read many commentators on the Scripture 
without feeling how groundless are numberless conclusions 
arrived at by extending Scriptural analogies beyond their just 
limits. Preachers and platform speakers are still more guilty. 
Not content with straining Holy Writ, they add to the mischief 
by pressing into their service comparisons of double meaning. 
The above quoted word " sea," has long been a much-enduring 
similitude in its relation to the countries and islands of the 
earth. What is it really to us, the earth's inhabitants ? Our 
highway and bond of union ? or a waste of waters given to 
divide rivals, as Horace phrases it, " Oceano dissociahili " ? 
The last is the oldest metaphor* 

Enough has been said upon various analogies to show 
how frequently even in their widest use (that of illustra- 
tion), the effect of extending them beyond their one salient 
point, is utter confusion. And with respect to illative 
analogy, this rule becomes obviously more stringent still. Paley 
meant it to be observed strictly as regards his own analogous 
reasoning. 

But the caution itself must be cautiously applied, where the 
* Compare the figure employed in Rev. xxi. 1. 



62 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



salient point on which the inference turns is too superficial, or 
too weak to stand alone. And this is the very thing we have 
to discuss next, — because a second accusation brought against 
the argument from Design is, that by reason of weakness in 
its pivot, it proves far too little. 

This second charge is less usual amongst popular than 
scientific writers, and most of us may learn something by 
sifting it. Their position may be described in few words as 
standing thus : — 

All examples which men can, of their own knowledge, 
connect with Design, fall under one sole class, and from this 
class alone they can argue. It contains the products of human 
workmanship and manufacture — and nothing else. By its 
characteristic processes (which together with their result make 
the sum of what we know about this class) it is so essentially 
dissociated from the products of Nature, that any appearance 
of design common between them must be pronounced super- 
ficial in the absence of stronger nexus. But since proof of 
such nexus remains wanting, Paley's analogy is worthless. It 
will be observed that the effect of this position is to sever 
between human works and natural things quite as completely 
as did the popular objection which we put first in our list of 
assaults upon Paley. Yet, though these conclusions may seem 
suspiciously coincident, the grounds of argument are really 
distinct. Scientific persons do not compare two objects 
natural and artificial, nor yet their two sets of constituents, 
and say, "These are unlike." They argue rather that the 
relative or proportionate likeness asserted is insufficiently 
made out, and that when it is said " Design implies a designer," 
people are speaking of design worked out in the known way 
of workmen. We (they observe) need not deny a designer of 
the world, but we desiderate evidence of his actual workman- 
ship. By this we shall know that he first conceived and then 
realized the alleged design. We do not feel convinced by 
being shown certain organic somethings in their perfect state, 
and being told to observe how very like contrivances they are. 
They may be very like, certainly, but we want assurances that 
they can be nothing else. We want to have shown us some 



PHILOSOPHY OF DESIGN. 



63 



work being done, and to ascertain that it is carried on in a 
workmanlike manner. Then we shall say with confidence, 
Here is the active hand of a designer. To compress our 
requisition into a single sentence, — We want not only to catch 
Nature in the fact, but also to ascertain that Nature's way of 
performing the fact has something essentially humanlike 
about it. 

To see our meaning clearly (add these objectors) take the 
instance of some marvellous work of man's art previously 
unknown to us. We could, if we perceived the marks of 
human fabrication, reason from a watch, or some other well 
known machine, to the conclusion that some person had 
designed it. In other words, we should feel sure that we were 
looking at a new product of skill, which differed from what 
we had seen before in the degree of excellence attained. The 
difference we feel in our transition from Art to Nature 
appears, on the contrary, to be a difference not only between 
more or less perfect products or processes, but a thorough 
difference of kind in the whole manner of bringing about the 
results placed before our eyes. Or put the case (they continue) 
as a piece of circumstantial evidence. We say positively of 
this or that machine, They are contrivances, things designed, 
because we know the history of their manufacture. We feel 
positive, because we are arguing from a plain patent fact to a 
hidden but absolutely essential condition, without which the 
fact could not exist. As regards natural products we have not 
got the fact — we do not know the history of their production. 
We cannot say, Here is the process, because the processes of 
Nature are mostly unknown to us. Paley therefore would 
have us assume the fact and argue from it ; first to design, 
next, to something more hidden still, — a Designer. Yet what 
we do know of natural processes is not encouraging ; there is 
visible about them more unlikeness than likeness to the 
processes employed by man. The truth maybe surmised, that 
Paley was always seeing in his own examples the footprints, 
as he thought, of a Designer. Hence he affirmed Design, and 
then argued back again in a never-ending circle. There is 
really no reason why he should have travelled round such a 



64 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



circuit. If his argument shows anything, it shows a Designer 
at once, (d) 

With some risk of tediousness, this last attack on Paley has 
been detailed at great length, and placed (as the present writer 
believes) in several of its most formidable shapes (e). But for 
additional security of fair dealing with the strongest of all 
objections — one which, if established, would be a death-blow to 
all argument on the subject (since its ultimatum is uncon- 
ditional surrender) — for these reasons, then, and in order to 
satisfy the most rigorous understanding, let it be finally 
rehearsed in the words of a most eminent physicist whom no 
one will accuse of haste, oversight, or credulity. To this 
rehearsal the Professor adds what is to us more important still, 
- — his judgment on the point at issue. 

But before quoting Professor Baden Powell, it may be worth 
while to make two short notes on the few preceding paragraphs. 
Let us take the last paragraph first. 

It really does appear that marks of Design and the footprints 
of a Designer are in common sense very nearly one and the same 
thing. If we concentrate our attention on the former, we are 
looking at an object on the side of certain properties, — that is, 
of certain subjectively perceived relations. For instance, we 
may think of the eye only as an optical instrument wonderfully 
constituted, and enumerate the parts of its visual apparatus. But 
the moment we speak of this apparatus as a provision intention- 
ally made for sight, we have introduced the idea of a Designer 
in the strongest sense of the word. Now, it is dinicult to think 
of anything as an example of intelligent arrangement, and at 
the same time give no hint even to our own thoughts of ar- 
ranging Intelligence. We canhardly look through a pane of glass 
and admire the perfect transparency of one, surface to the ex- 
clusion of the other ! We are not now speaking of what might be 
done,if attempted by a man so profoundly skilled in analytics that 

(d) There seems little doubt that the popular phrase "Design proves a 
Designer" has given rise to an extensive distrust of the Design argu- 
ment in toto. Compare Additional Note B. 

(e) Another shape of the objection is stated and examined in Additional 
Note C. 



PHILOSOPHY OF DESIGN. 



65 



"He could distinguish, and divide 
A hair 'twixt south and south-west side." 

We are rather speaking of what it is natural to do. And it 
may be doubted whether anybody thinks of a design as 
design very long without thinking also of the Designer. 

One other remark is suggested by the reference to process 
as contradistinguished from product. Here, again, the real 
question is, How far is such a distinction maintainable in fact ? 
Does it rest upon any definite separation in Nature ? The 
exact contradictory is the truth ; taking tlie world as it is, 
the distinction, though clear in thought, becomes essentially 
fluent when objectively regarded. What -we call a production 
one moment, we say is a process the next. You have, for 
example, a galvanic current, produced by certain chemical 
combinations, and often a product per se of some importance, 
Yet the current itself is a part of the electro typing process. 
Suppose this done, you have your electrotype — your coin, — a 
hard fact, — a solid production, bright, beautiful, admirable ! 
But we w T ill suppose you, while devising all this, to have a 
further view ; — the coin is to be employed in the process of 
imposture. Here again comes a result — a great fraud com- 
mitted ; but this is not all. The fraudulent procedure turns 
out a very useful police-trap, and your chemical combination 
sends the last actor on the scene to Portland, for at least ten 
years. Consider in this brief history the scientific arrangements, 
material conditions, and workmanlike execution, discernible in 
its earlier parts ; then, see how mind becomes gradually pre- 
dominant, and how Law, based on ideas of corrective justice, 
enters the series. Add the judge and jury, and you admit the 
force of intellect, — deliberating, deciding, putting further 
activities in motion ; till, perhaps, if the reformatory process 
succeeds, Portland may have the honour of giving to society 
the welcome product of (as times go) a passably honest man, 
We might really frame a curious inquiry as respects this 
flowing tide of process and production, production and process, 
with its comminolino* currents and waves which seem to 

© o 

interrupt each other like circles of diffracted light. We might 
ask which of all these parts of the moving diorama is most 

5 



66 PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



distinctly human. I believe most people would say, those 
scenes in which mind, not mere workmanship, is most evidently 
discernible. 

Professor Powell seems to have thought so too. The diffi- 
culty we have been discussing he states as an objection 
requiring solution.* 

"In those cases most nearly approaching the nature of human 
works, such as the varied and endless changes in matter going on in 
the laboratory of nature, the results, even when most analogous to 
those obtained in human laboratories, yet present no marks of the 
process or of the means employed, by which to recognise the 
analogous workman ; and in all the grander productions, the incessant 
evolutions of vegetable and animal life, which no human laboratory 
can produce, — in the structure of earth and ocean, or the infinite 
expanse of the heavens and their transcendent mechanism, still 
further must we be from finding any analogy to the works of man, 
or, by consequence, any analogy to a personal individual artificer." 

The next paragraph contains his own judgment. 

" But the more just view of the case is that which arises from the 
consideration that the real evidence is that of mind and intelligence ; 
for here we have a proper and strict analogy. Mind directing the 
operations of the laboratory or the workshop, is no part of the visible 
apparatus, nor are its operations seen in themselves — they are visible 
only in their effects ; — and from effects, however dissimilar in magni- 
tude or in kind, yet agreeing in the one grand condition of order, 
adjustment, profound and recondite connexion and dependence, there 
is the same evidence and outward manifestation of Invisible Intelli- 
gence, as vast and illimitable as the universe throughout which those 
manifestations are seen." 

This second extract may be analysed into distinct propo- 
sitions somewhat as follows : — 
In a manufactory, — 

Mind is no part of the visible apparatus — nor are its opera- 
tions visible, — 

But the' effects make the operations manifest. — 

* Essay on the "Spirit of the Inductive Philosophy," Ed. 2, p. 174 
The italics and capitals are Professor Powell's. 



PHILOSOPHY OF DESIGN. 



67 



In the universe, — 

Effects may be seen differing from human productions in 
many ways, — but agreeing in one common characteristic, — 
order — adjustment — hidden interdependence. 

Such effects make manifest the operation of an Invisible 
Intelligence as vast as the Universe itself. 

The majority of people might suppose this a conclusive 
inference from Nature to the Being of a Personal God. But 
Professor Powell does not so intend it ; and therefore some 
readers may feel disposed to blame his use of words. It is, 
however, only fair that before so doing, they should carefully 
consider his whole mode of apprehending the subject in its 
completeness. And the easiest way of understanding Powell 
is, most probably, to compare him with Paley. 

The latter is confident that when he has derived the design 
and arrangement of the world from a mind analogous to the 
mind of man, but immeasurably vast as the Universe which 
man inhabits, — little more need be said. He thinks the infinite 
intelligence thus demonstrated, is clearly no other than the 
Great First Cause, and Creator of all things. " Contrivance, if 
established, appears to me to prove everything which we wish 
to prove." This sentence begins Chap, xxiii., and the rest of 
Paley's Natural Theology is intended to demonstrate and verify 
its correctness. 

Powell thinks that the step from a mind or intelligence, 
even if conceived illimitable as the Universe, to a First Cause, 
Supreme Mind, or Moral Cause, is a very much longer ascent (f) 

(f) Were Paley now alive, lie might plead the example of Mr. Darwin, 
whose practice it is to speak of any incidental chasm occasioned by the 
link sometimes missing from his premises, as "not a long step." "Mr. 
Darwin's argument," says a reviewer of his " Descent of Man," ' 'is a con- 
tinuous conjugation of the potential mood. It rings the changes on 1 can 
have been,' ' might have been/ 'would have been,' 'should have been,' 
until it leaps with a wide bound into ' must have been.' " (Times, April 
8, 1871.) Any similarity between the reasonings of the Archdeacon and 
the Naturalist may appear noteworthy. But the coincidence ends here. 
Paley, though reproved by a Lord Chancellor, had the good fortune to 
be excused by a Bishop. There is a short account of both censure and 
defence in the notes to Powell's " Connection of Natural and Divine 
Truth," pp. 287-9. 



68 



PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



than Paley thought it. By these latter terms he meant — as 
Paley did — the Divine Personality believed in by Theists, and 
evidenced, first, as mind by a reign of law, order, and arrange- 
ment, ,so far as the world can evidence Him ; — but manifest, 
secondly, in His higher nature as the fountain and originator 
of law — that is, a true Cause, a manifestation due to the causal 
structure of our own human minds. The point of difference is 
the length of the step to be taken from Law to Causation ; but 
Powell agrees with his predecessor in asserting it, though 
arduous, to be absolutely safe. The point he insists on is that 
we cannot take it by a contemplation of the world without us 
only. " Ever-present mind" he says,* "is a direct inference 
from the universal order of nature, or rather only another mode 
of expressing it. But of the mode of existence of that mind 
we can infer nothing." 

From this view he draws conclusions in opposite directions. 
Pantheism,f the co-existence or identification of mind with 
matter, "is at best a mere gratuitous hypothesis, and as such 
wholly unphilosophical in itself, and leading to many prepos- 
terous consequences." There are also grounds on which Theism 
appears certain and Pantheism extravagant, absurd, and con- 
tradictory. X To see these grounds we are to carry out the 
analogy given us by the common characteristics of order, ad- 
justment, and interdependence visible through their effects as 
in the human workshop or laboratory, so, too, in the vast il- 
limitable Universe, and described in our second extract as 
manifestations of Mind or invisible Intelligence. In the para- 
graph immediately following that extract, § he continues : — 

" It is by analogy with the exercise of intellect, and the volition, or 
power of moral causation, of which we are conscious within our- 
selves, that we speak of the Sujweme Mind and Moral Cause of the 
Universe, of whose operation, order arrangement and adaptation, 
are the external manifestations. Order implies what by analogy we 
call intelligence ; subserviency to an observed end implies intelligence 
foreseeing which by analogy, we call Design." 

The last sentence of the paragraph now quoted is very 
* P. 177. t Ibid. % Ibid. § Pp. 175-6. 



PHILOSOPHY OF DESIGN. 



remarkable. The eminent writer directs attention to a dis- 
tinction between two several inferences which can be drawn 
from the observed manifestations of Order, and of Foresight. 
From the first, he says, we infer Intelligence, from the latter 
we infer Design. It seems singular that Powell should have 
defined this distinction so clearly, and made no further use 
of it. 

He might naturally have insisted upon the separate and 
diverse evidences thus afforded by the physical world. Amid 
the variety of human minds, some may feel impressed by the 
contemplation of Nature in one of these ways, some in the 
other. To many persons the magnificent spectacle of a law- 
governed Universe, infinitely manifold yet everywhere harmo- 
nious, appears to justify the belief in one supreme Reason and 
sovereign Will. Separate parts of this same Universe — or the 
whole in its entirety of vastness — when considered as mani- 
festing purpose — that is, intentional adaptation to separate 
ends or to one end — are to other minds a more convincing- 
line of thought. 

With many writers on Natural Theology the different shades 
of meaning implied in the word Design * may prevent .clear- 
ness of conception in this respect. But our author (like Paley) 
appears to use this word in its strongest signification. 

And this usage of Powell's brings into view another point 
in his reasoning even more singular than the one to which we 
have just adverted. Surely, if in the natural world we observe 
the manifestations of an Intelligence foreseeing an End, and 
employing means in subserviency to that end, it seems strange 
to conclude that respecting the mode of existence of such 
Intelligence we can infer nothing, yet the words occur on the 
very next page. It would seem almost an impossibility to 
suppose such a mind existing as anything less than a Person- 
ality under the twofold aspect of a Reason and a Will. Paley 's 
common sense drew this conclusion at once, and very profound 

* Putting aside workmanship exercised on given material, we may- 
perceive a gliding of thought from the idea of plan, form, or fashion, 
to adaptation, and so onwards to purpose and intention — that is, con.- 
scious adaptation to a designed end. 



70 



PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



thinkers have agreed with Paley on the topic. " That/' says 
F. H. Jacobi, " which, in opposition to Fate, makes God into a 
true God, is called Foresight. Where it is, there alone is 
Reason; and where Reason is, there also is Foresight. Foresight 
in itself is Spirit, and to that only which is of Spirit do those 
feelings of admiration, awe, and love, which announce its 
existence, correspond. We can indeed declare of any object 
that it is beautiful or perfect, without previously knowing how 
it became so, whether with or without the operation of Fore- 
sight ; — but the power which caused it so to be, that we can- 
not admire, if it produced the object, without aim or purpose, 
according to laws of mere Necessity of Nature." * 

In point of fact Professor Powell was himself of the same 
opinion, for in another place he writes thus : — 

" Now, the bare fact of order and arrangement is on all hands 
undisputed, though commonly most inadequately understood and 
appreciated. 

" The inference of design, intention, forethought, is something 
beyond the last mentioned truth, and not to be confounded ivith it. 
This implies intelligent agency, or moral causation. Hence again, we 
advance to the notion of distinct existence, or what is sometimes 
called personality ; and thence proceed to ascribe the other Divine 
attributes and perfections as centring in that independent Being. "f 

It appears only just to the Archdeacon that we should notice 
this variation of language on the part of his censor. £ Of this 
variation itself the true account seems undoubtedly to be as 
follows. The writer was engaged in tracing the progress of 
conviction in his own mind. He first observes order, adjust- 
ment, interdependence, throughout the Universe. Hence he is 
penetrated by the impression of pervading Intelligence. Next, 
he perceives that these results could never have taken place 
unless foreseen and provided for by a designed subserviency of 

* " Sammtliche Werke," vol. II., pp. 51, 52. 

f " Connexion of Natural and Divine Truth," pp. 183-4 

% See the work last quoted, pp. 287-9. The Professor substantially 

agrees with Lord Brougham's censure before referred to, and considers 

Dr. Turton's defence of Paley an insufficient apology. 



PHILOSOPHY OF DESIGN. 



71 



means to ends, and this convinces him of the Personality of 
that universal Mind. Finally, he draws, from the analysis 
of Causation, a full definition of the great Originator of all 
things. 

The fact, however, remains that each of these gradations of 
reasoning may be stated just as easily and more logically as 
separate and convergent lines of thought, because each can be 
rested on a separate combination of proofs. But the elucidation 
of this subject cannot be compressed into few words, and must 
be deferred to our fifth and sixth chapters. 

Still there is a very peculiar and special satisfaction in fol- 
lowing the path of argument which persuaded an acute and 
practised reasoner, accomplished in several departments of 
knowledge, and himself of a turn of mind which would appear 
naturally adapted to the utmost refinements of sceptical inves- 
tigation. We shall, therefore, now return to our comparison of 
Powell with his predecessor. 

These two distinguished writers do, in fact, come at last to 
the same conclusion. But they reach it through a difference 
in the paths travelled over by such logic of evidence as may 
after all seem natural enough to a theological pleader on one 
side, and on the other to a scientific physicist. 

Professor Powell, of course, leads us more deeply than his 
predecessor into the thorny thickets surrounding Natural 
Theology. No one can read his essays without re'marking the 
subtlety of his thought, which to many readers appears over 
refined, and to some as employed on points in themselves un- 
important. Mr. Baden Powell's own deliberate judgment was 
the other way, as we find from the last* of his considerable 
performances on our subject. " Points," he writes, " which 
may be seen to involve the greatest difficulty to more profound 
inquirers, are often such as do not occasion the least perplexity 
to ordinary minds, but are allowed to pass without hesitation. 
. . . On the other hand, exceptions held forth as fatal by 
the shallow caviller are seen by the more deeply reflecting in 
all their actual littleness and fallacy." 

* " Essays and Reviews," 8vo. p. 125. 



72 



PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



We may add that a subtle argument is often like a sharp 
thin blade, cutting clean into the very heart of a question. If 
it indeed prove a home thrust, few things ought to be more 
fearlessly and cheerfully welcomed by those who desire to 
dissect out the naked, intrinsic truth. We will, therefore, 
dissect a little deeper, following the Professor's track of de- 
monstration. 

We find him, then, reaching down to a septum, or, as botan- 
ists prefer to speak, a strong dissepiment between a law of 
Nature or physical causation, and a true Cause in the highest 
and most emphatic sense (g). 

Such a separation is not to be sought from a writer of 
Paley's date, when the modern notion of law was unformed, 
or rather was in process of formation. Thus Newton's disco- 
veries were thought by many persons irreligious, because the 
stability of the heavens appeared like something necessarily 
determined. Respecting this opinion, Powell observes (and 

(g) The general reader may reasonably feel a difficulty in assigning their 
proper meaning to terms used in senses so technical. He may possibly 
be assisted by looking over the field of view thus : — A Force is visible to 
us as a movement in Nature ; — when we try to formulate it intelligently 
to ourselves, its mental equivalent is Law. If, then, we wish to describe 
an intelligent prse-conception of Law (such as distinctly involves the Fore- 
sight of its operation) we call the Law a Creative Idea, or (less definitely) 
a Design. Tracing the chain of causation in the reverse or downward 
direction, the Idea when put in movement appears to our mind's eye as 
Law ; and when we wish to include its actual working upon the realm 
of Nature we term it a Force. " 

Both James Mill and his son (a truly affectionate annotator), are careful 
to point out that the essence of moral causation involves Intention — 
that is (as Mr. Mill explains), Foresight, or expectation of consequences. 
—"Analysis of the Human Mind," II., 400, 40] . 

It should be observed that in many branches of Natural Science the 
word Law is so employed as to include the conception of Force. Law 
is in this usage not merely a logical formula expressive of realized facts, 
but it involves the idea of the coercion or impellent motion which 
brought those facts into being. " Thus, then," says Dr. Carpenter, 
' ' whilst no Law, which is simply a generalisation of phenomena, can be 
considered as having any coercive action, we may assign that value to 
Laws which express the universal conditions of the action of a Force, the 
existence of which we learn from the testimony of our own consciousness." 
He had before remarked that "it is the substitution of the Dynamical 



PHILOSOPHY OF DESIGN. 



73 



from his point of view with truth), that " such necessity of 
reason is the highest proof of design." Paley, on the contrary, 
felt inclined to despair of discovering much evidence of Design 
in Astronomy, but he looked upon the starry heavens as afford- 
ing the most ample and glorious confirmation of the agency of 
an intelligent Creator, when proved from some other source. 
In his next chapter (the 23rd) he proceeds to reprehend the 
mistaken sense of law, growing up amongst physicists in his 
own day. " It will," he says, " be made to take the place of 
power, and still more, of intelligent power," and will " be as- 
signed for the cause of anything or of any property of any- 
thing that exists." In this remark he -shows his accustomed 
penetration. Law, antecedent and consequent, with their 
series of physical evolutions, have been talked of by men who 
confuse physics and metaphysics, as if they could thereby 
account for a whole universe* Now, from this cloudy confu- 
sion (h), Professor Powell is exempt. He accepts (as obviously 
he must accept) the natural-science idea of law, which looks at 
it as an orderly expression of force, and tells us that " law and 

for the mere Phenomenal idea, which gives their highest value to 
our conceptions of the Order of Nature." — Address to British Associa- 
tion at Brighton, August, 1872. This Order of Nature, as the learned 
President says in conclusion, is no 4 ' sufficient account of its Cause." 

* See how the matter appears to a Satirist : — "By the great variety 
of theories here alluded to, every one of which, if thoroughly examined, 
will be found surprisingly consistent in all its parts ; my unlearned 
readers will perhaps be led to conclude that the creation of a world is not 
so difficult a task as they at first imagined. I have shown at least a score 
of ingenious methods in which a world could be constructed ; and I have 
no doubt that had any of the philosophers above quoted the use of a 
good manageable comet, and the philosophical warehouse, chaos, at his 
command, he would engage to manufacture a planet as good, or, if 
you will take his word for it, better than this we inhabit Such is the 
dictum of the profound Knickerbocker, — "History of New York," 8vo, 
p. 16. His variety of theories concludes with that of "the renowned 
Dr. Darwin," of Lichfield. If the history were brought down to our day, 
additional variety might be given to this part of it. 

(h) It is upon this confusion that Powell charges Pantheistic theories in 
which physical speculations are mistakenly supposed to have their natu- 
ral termination. See Additional Note D, where the passage to which more 
than one reference has already been made, is given in extenso. Com- 
pare also our Chapter VI. on Causation. 



74 



PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



order, physical causation and uniformity of action are the ele- 
vated manifestations of Divinity, creation and providence."* 
But from the conception of Mind or Intelligence thus given us, 
which, though invisible to the eye, is yet, in its effects, plainly 
visible, he distinguishes, over and over again, the idea of a true 
originating first Caused We see the necessity of a moral Cause 
as distinguished from a physical antecedent, when we survey 
Nature. But Nature does not contain the idea in an explicit 
shape. She only necessitates its acceptance. This idea, we 
find, he tells us, manifest in our own moral nature, — by analogy 
we discern it in the Divine. He likewise severely blames 
those who commingle in words the two contrasted thoughts and 
lines of inference, and mentions Coleridge and Sterling % by way 
of example. As concerns his own mode of establishing the idea 
of causation in its proper and peculiar force, Professor Powell 
agrees with a large number of metaphysicians, ancient and 

* Essay as above, p. 165. 

t The signification attached by the Professor to Law and Cause may 
be most readily explained by a similitude. Let the physical series of 
antecedents and consequents be represented by a chain of which we see 
the present links, but both its beginning and its end are invisible. Phy- 
sical law is this chain. Cause must not be considered its first link, for 
Cause differs in hind from the series, is in truth sv.i generis, and can be 
illustrated by no physical phenomenon, but by the fact of our own Moral 
Yolition. Cause, therefore, is external to the chain, and originates, not 
only the first, but every link of it. Each and all — nay, the universal 
chain in its entirety — may be viewed as owing its existence to one single 
fiat of an absolute moral Cause. Compare on this subject Chapters YI. 
and YII. ensuing. 

% Essay, pp. 155, 173. It should, however, be observed that Ster- 
ling's language has been interpreted two opposite ways, and therefore the 
obscurity may be verbal. Coleridge's expressions have regard to certain 
u so-called Demonstrations. " His own judgment as to the cumulative 
proofs of Theism was that " there are so many convincing reasons for it, 
within and without — a grain of sand sufficing, and a whole universe at 
hand to echo the decision ! — that for every mind not devoid of all reason, 
and desperately conscience-proof, the Truth which it is the least pos- 
sible to prove, it is little less than impossible not to believe ; only in- 
deed just so much short of impossible, as to leave some room for the will 
and the moral election, and thereby to keep it a truth of religion, and 
the possible subject of a commandment." — Aids to Reflection, Edition 
1843, Yol. I. p. 135. Eirst and rare edition, p. 177. 



PHILOSOPHY OF DESIGN. 



75 



modern. It might seem superfluous to name as an instance the 
late Dean Mansel, were not a passage in his " Prolegomena" so 
full of good matter on the topic.* 

In this view of causation, then, Powell advanced nothing 
new. But what he did advance was really valuable. The man 
who can rise no higher than law or succession as he sees it 
impressed on outward nature, stands in a totally different 
position from the man whose insight into Reason and Will has 
shown him the idea of true Causation. For, he has seen that 
whoever is the author of his own act, does something which 
puts in movement a new series of antecedence and consequence, 
— a new train of events, the issue of which- no man can foresee ; 
— though of what has come, and is coming, he, the individual 
man, is the truly responsible cause (i). But if he can introduce 
into the order of the outward world, a new antecedent carrying 
after it a chain of new consequents, what shall he think respect- 

* ' ' There is thus no alternative, but either to abandon the inquiry- 
after an immediate intuition of power, or to seek for it in mind as deter- 
mining its own modifications ; a course open to those who admit an imme- 
diate consciousness of self, and to them only. My first and only pre- 
sentation of power or causality is thus to be found in my consciousness of 
myself as ivilling. In every act of volition, I am fully conscious that it is 
in my power to form the resolution or to abstain ; and this constitutes 
the presentative consciousness of free-will and of power. Like any other 
simple idea, it cannot be defined ; and hence the difficulty of verbally 
distinguishing causation from mere succession. But every man who has 
been conscious of an act of will, has been conscious of power therein ; 
and to one who has not been so conscious, no verbal description can 
supply the deficiency." — Prolegomena Logica, p. 151. 

(i) It seems singular that this rise of thought has of late years seldom 
been explicitly put forward as the natural continuation and necessary 
extension of the argument from Design. ' ' He that planted the ear, 
shall He not hear ? He that formed the eye, shall He not see % ... . 
He that teacheth man knowledge, shall not He know ?" In other words, 
if we may argue from the structure of the eye and ear to an Intelligence 
which comprehends our sense-perceptions, their conditions, and their 
activities, may we not always argue from the reason of man to an Intelli- 
gence comprehending our highest human endowments 1 

If so, we reflect these attributes back upon our explanation of the 
natural world. We say, further, that such a Creator would never make 
a mere machine. Humanity was a necessary complement of all that is 
set under Man. And thus Francis Bacon's aphorism may be applied in a 



76 PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



ing the absolute Cause of all worlds, things and beings, the 
thinker himself included ? Who shall persuade him to deny 
the reasonableness of a Providence following creation ? Who 
can reprove the man when he feels and asserts his own moral 
power, for a belief in Miracles ? Above all, who will demon- 
strate that prayer is inefficacious, if we can rise (as Baden 
Powell says we can rise) "by analogy with the exercise of 
intellect, and the volition, or power of moral causation, of 
which we are conscious within ourselves, to the Supreme Mind 
and Moral Cause of the universe ? " 

It is no slight praise to say that Professor Powell clearly saw, 
and no less clearly expressed, a truth not always apprehended 
among physicists. By giving it expression, he rendered a sub- 
stantial service to Natural Theology. It is, indeed, a serious 
drawback and impediment to Natural Theologians that their 
argument requires some acquaintance with more than one wide 
field of knowledge. They have to reason from the material 
world, — they have also to reason from the world of mind ; and 
in countries like England, France, and Germany, where division 
of labour penetrates every calling, literary as well as manufac- 
turing, a combination of this sort is a matter of infrequent 
occurrence. To this retarding circumstance may be ascribed 
the want of progress in several mixed sciences,* which, like 
the subject we are treating, occupy two distinct tracts of 
border-land territory. 

The separating wall between Law and Cause built up by 
Professor Powell, was founded on fact, and will probably re- 
main unshaken. But he added to it a theoretical limitation 
of the term, Natural Theology, which, like many changes in 
verbal usage, does not appear defensible, — particularly as its 
bad effects are plainly shown in Professor Powell's own book. 

double sense, — Man not only interprets Nature to himself — but lie affords 
in himself a text for her more complete interpretation. Nature and 
Human Nature are two correlatives. 

*■ Take, as example, the scientific theories on Insanity and its melan- 
choly accompaniments. How many theorizers seem to justify Sir William 
Ellis's old observation, that few of his medical brethren ever got much 
notion of Mind ? » 



PHILOSOPHY OF DESIGN. 



77 



Within two pages of the passage on Causation last quoted, he 
startles the unwary reader by saying (p. 173) that " Natural 
Theology confessedly 'proves too little/ because it cannot rise to 
the metaphysical idea or scriptural representation of God." It 
is generally vain to inquire what may be meant by " Meta- 
physical." Few people are aware that everybod} 7 , learned or 
unlearned, talks metaphysics either well or ill ; and usually (as 
M. Jourdain talked prose) without knowing it. The epithet 
" metaphysical " figures often enough as another name for what 
is unintelligible; — and most Englishmen apply it to all "ideas" 
not strictly commercial or practical. Here it seems to stand 
along with Scripture, in opposition to Natural Theology ; while 
the latter term is in turn opposed to the science of the human 
mind. Yet does not Powell distinctly trace a Mind and Intelli- 
gence analogous to the mind and intelligence of Man, through- 
out the world of outward Nature ; and does he not further 
determine that this same analogy, fairly carried out, leads to 
what he noiv calls " the metaphysical idea, or scriptural repre- 
sentation of God ? " In other words, when discussing the 
question of Evidence, he finds Mind pervading outward Nature, 
— he treats Mind as the ordering and sovereign part of the 
Natural world, which visibly shows the effect of its invisible 
direction, and bids us follow up this higher nature in its 
analogies to God, of Whose operation the order and arrange- 
ment of the Universe are external manifestations. But, 
when he speaks of Natural Theology, that higher nature 
seems to disappear ; intellect, volition, and the power of 
moral causation, slip out of sight, and are blotted from his 
catalogue of natural facts. Human nature must thus be 
treated as no part of universal Nature, in order that a need- 
lessly narrow and purely theoretical fence may be drawn 
round the science of Natural Theology ! Natural Theology 
and Natural Religion are, in truth, terms originally adopted 
as mere antitheses to Revelation. The first signifies what 
mankind might have known, or may know, of the Divine 
Being, prior to, or apart from, any direct message sent by 
Himself. The second is intended to comprehend those rela- 
tions between that Divine Being and ourselves, which must 



78 PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



ensue immediately upon the acceptance of Theism * The ideas 
expressed by these two terms are as old as Revelation itself, — 
a strong reason why their meaning should not be lightly 
altered.^ But this antithetic usage was never intended to pre- 
judge the question whether the results of Natural Theology and 
Religion do not coincide to a very great extent with the teaching 
of revelation. Much less was there any idea of answering this 
question in the negative, as a hasty reader of certain isolated 
passages in Professor Powell's book might easily be led to 
'answer it. % 

Our strictures may be aptly concluded by a quotation taken 
from another recent writer. Professor Newman understands 
the evidence of Design in the same breadth of meaning which 
we have attached to it. Under it he comprehends the evidence 
of Mind naturally known to us, as may be seen by the following 
extracts : — 

" A lung," says Mr. Newman, § "bears a certain relation to the air, 
a gill to the water, the eye to light, the mind to truth, human hearts 
to one another : is it gratuitous and puerile to say that these relations 
imply design ? There is no undue specification here, no antagonist 
argument, no intrusion of human artifice : we take the things fresh 
from nature. In saying that lungs were intended to breathe, and eyes 
to see, we imply an argument from Fitness to Design, which carries 
conviction to the overwhelming majority of cultivated as well as un- 
cultivated minds. ... If such a fact stood alone in the universe, 
and no other existences spoke of Design, it would probably remain a 
mere enigma to us ; but when the whole human world is pervaded 
by similar instances, not to see a Universal Mind in nature appears 

almost a brutal insensibility Of the physical structure of 

mind, no one pretends to know anything ; but this does not weaken 

* u Natural Theology attempts to demonstrate the existence of a per- 
sonal First Cause, supreme Reason, and Will. The relations of mankind 
towards such a Being are called Natural Religion." — Bight and Wrong, 
p. 58. 

f If any one wishes to convince himself that other meanings proposed 
are open to serious objections, let him peruse Max Mtiller's first Lecture 
on the Science of Religion. 

% Compare Additional Note E, on the extent and divisions of the 
Science of Natural Theology. 

§ The Soul, p. 32, seq. 



PHILOSOPHY OF DESIGN. 



79 



our conviction that the mind was meant to discern truth. Why- 
should any philosopher resist this judgment ? One thing might 
justify him ; namely, if there were strong d priori reasons for dis- 
believing that Mind exists anywhere except in man. But the case is 
just the reverse. That puny beings who are but of yesterday, and 
presently disappear, should alone possess that which of all things is 
highest and most wonderful, is d priori exceedingly implausible. As 
Socrates and Cicero have pointedly asked : 4 Whence have we picked 
it up ?' Its source is not in ourselves : there must surely be a 
source beyond us. Thus the tables are turned : we must prima facie 
expect to find Mind in the Universe, acting on some stupendous 
scale, and of course imperfectly understood by us. Consequently, 
such Fitnesses as meet our view on all sides bring a reasonable 
conviction that Design lies beneath them. ■ To confess this, is to 
confess the doctrine of an intelligent Creator, although we pretend 
not to understand anything concerning the mode, stages, or time of 
Creation. Adding now the conclusions drawn from the Order of the 
universe, we have testimony, adapted to the cultivated judgment, that 
there is a Boundless, Eternal, Unchangeable, Designing Mind, not 
without whom this system of things coheres : and this Mind we 
call God." 

To take stumbling-blocks out of the reader's way has been 
the main object of this Chapter. It has discussed the meaning 
and force of several words. The discussion may have seemed 
somewhat intricate, — but if honest, and, so far as it goes, 
thorough, no one will deny its utility. For facts are known to 
us as words, and words are facts to our intellect, since they 
express our apprehension of objects. They are, in brief, the 
interpreters of a world-wide human consciousness. And in the 
strength of consciousness our knowledge stands, if it does 
stand; — unfaithful to consciousness, it must fall, and ought to 
die the death of a traitor.* 

The word most discussed has been that one upon which 
turns the best known argument by Natural Theology — 
" Design." We trust also, that it may hereafter gain acldi- 

* Any strictures of ours on the language employed by Natural Theo- 
logians must be understood as appeals from individual or peculiar usage 
to world-wide acceptation and old established custom : — 

u Quern penes arbitrium est et jus et norma loquendi." 



80 PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



tional clearness under sidelights from other trains of thought * 
And what next follows will be essentially a discussion of 
thoughts and things — in which words are to be treated less as 
their representatives, and more as our servants and implements. 
For this Chapter will have been written to very little purpose 
if the reader has failed to perceive that Natural Theology f 
includes at the very least two distinct elements — two separate 
sets of premises drawn from different sources. One of these 
factors rests upon our human knowledge of the natural world 
we live in — the other requires a deeper kind of knowledge, and 
one far less cultivated upon inductive principles — the know- 

* As regards another important word illustrated in this chapter, it may 
be useful to add that the term Analogy is often employed in a wide or 
rather vague signification ; not only by careless writers, but by philo- 
sophers. There is an important passage in Bacon's Plan of the Instaura- 
tio (prefixed to the Novum Organon) which Wood translates thus : — 
' ' The testimony and information of the senses bears always a relation to 
man, and not to the universe, and it is altogether a great mistake to 
assert that our senses are the measure of things. 

The Latin original for " bears a relation " is " est ex analogia," but Mr. 
Ellis prefers rendering it by " has reference to," and confirms his decision 
by comparing two other Latin phrases ; — one, " Materia non est cognosci- 
bilis nisi ex analogia formse " — the other, " Materia non est scibilis nisi 
iw ordine ad formam ; — ut dicit " (adds Thomas Aquinas) " Philosophus 
in primo Physicorum." Mr. Ellis subjoins " That the meaning of the 
word Analogy was misconceived by S. Thomas, by Duns Scotus, and by 
the schoolmen in general, is pointed out by Zabarella, He prim, rerum 
materia, I. 4." 

" Philosophus" means Aristotle, who, however, in the passage referred 
to is faithful to his own correct definition of Analogy, and his instance 
may readily be stated in four terms, as will appear on reference to the 
passage (Ed. Bekker 191, a. 8), Argyropylus translates by " simili- 
tudine rationis," and St. Hilaire explains "analogia" for the benefit of 
the general reader by " rapport proportionnel " — (Lecons de Physique 
I. 8, s. 18). 

That Bacon was really thus vague in his use of " ex analogia " may be 
gathered from his substitution of " in ordine ad " as an equivalent in the 
closely related passage, Nov. Org. II. 20. Such being the' case with so 
great a writer, some little allowance may be made for difference of phrase 
employed by ordinary reasoners on Natural Theology. 

f By way of assisting the young student to a clear perception of what 
is involved in our Science, we illustrate its ground-work at considerable 
length in an additional note (marked F) on Teleology. 



PHILOSOPHY OF DESIGN. 



81 



ledge, that is to say, of our own nature — our essential humanity 
and selfness. 

The investigation of this last element is of paramount im- 
portance for the purpose we have in hand, since, without some 
ascertained principles and conditions of truth, men may fold 
their hands and view all behind and above the moving diorama 
of present impressions as ideas sublime but hopeless* — too 
high for us, who surely can never attain to them. The plan, 
therefore, of this essay is to take from the point now reached 
a fresh start — to set out, not from a consideration of what we 
may desire to know, but of how much or how little can be 
known, and the conditions of our knowing it. 

An honest wish to be sure of one single thing soon shows us 
the impediments we meet in making quite sure of anything. 
Soon, also, we painfully learn that these impediments arise 
from two persistent sets of causes. Difficulties on the one 
hand occasioned by the obscurity, complication, or many-sided- 
ness of objects actually existing in rerum naturd. Difficulties 
on the other hand, which, like barnacles and remorse attached 
to a good ship's wooden bottom, act as drags and retardations 
on our own apprehending faculties. Barnacle-like, they can 
only be kept at a distance or detached by carefully-devised 
contrivances. And these again give rise to troubles of other 
kinds, — just as copper-sheathed keels or iron vessels are not 
without their drawbacks. 

The inquiry we propose will have a great collateral advan- 
tage, both to him who doubts and to him who accepts Theism. 
For we shall at least get rid of what may fairly be termed a 
stupid prejudice. Persons who read and think little, are apt 
to base upon their own ignorance a vague presumption that 
the path of knowledge is plain and easy, until men try to 
know God. Then all is hard ; the pleasant path becomes a 
rough and toilsome road. Others who read, but think less 
than they read, are aware that very real obstacles beset all 

* Die rechte Erkenntniss kann sich erst dann einfinden wenn man 
weiss wie man erkennt d. h. wenn man seine eigene Natur begriffen 
hat." Page 5 of " Ueber den Ursprung der Sprache," von W. H. J. 
Bleek. 



82 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



deep inquiry, yet form hazy and imperfect notions as to the 
true extent of those obstacles. They little think how often 
we are all obliged to accept and maintain first truths ; — 
difficulties objective, and difficulties subjective, notwith- 
standing. 

Of one practical conclusion resulting from yiese difficulties, 
we may feel assured beforehand. Many objects of the greatest 
interest and importance to truth can never be truly known as 
they are in themselves ; — our utmost hope is to know, not 
them, but as much as we can discover respecting them. And 
sometimes this limited knowledge is invaluable. If it does not 
gratify our natural desire for speculation, it may often guide 
and govern our lives. Unspeakably important, for example, 
in itself and in its consequences, must be an affirmative 
answer to our anxious question concerning the existence of 
a God. 

Corollary. — It plainly appears from what has been said, 
that the knowledge of an " efficient cause " (in physics) does 
not, and cannot, at all preclude the inquiry after a purpose or 
" final cause " ; but, on the contrary, leads to its investigation. 
In a watch's action, the former is represented by the moving 
power — that is, the spring ; the latter, by the watch's function 
— that of indicating hours, minutes, and seconds. Would any 
uninformed person, examining a watch for the first time, and 
knowing no more than what he sees, — be able to give to him- 
self any real account of the watch, if spring, train of wheel- 
work, and pointers, were shown him ; but no hint given of the 
purpose and object of the whole construction ? Now, to tell 
him this, would be to convey the idea, — a principle which 
resides in Mind, and in Mind alone ; — and, so residing, leads 
to intelligent adaptation ; — that is, a law or laws apprehended 
by the active exercise of certain mental faculties. 

Let the intelligent reader ask himself whether any func- 
tional structure can be comprehended on any lower terms ? — 
As however this latter question will be fully discussed further 
on, it is unnecessary to say more respecting it at present. 



ADDITIONAL NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO 
CHAPTER II. 



. A. — ON THE ABSTRACT REASONINGS INVOLVED IN 
NATURAL THEOLOGY. 

In his discourse on Natural Theology, Lord Brougham writes thus 
(p. 78): — " The whole reasoning proceeds necessarily upon the 
assumption that there exists a being or thing separate from, and inde- 
pendent of, matter, and conscious of its own existence, which we call 
mind. For the argument is, 1 Had I to accomplish this purpose, I 
should have used some such means '; or, ' Had I used these means, I 
should have thought I was accomphshing some such purpose.' Per- 
ceiving the adaptation of the means to the end, the inference is, that 
some being has acted as we should ourselves act, and with the same 
views. But when we so speak, and so reason, we are all the while 
referring to an intelligent principle or existence ; we are referring to 

our mind, and not to our bodily frame." " The belief 

that mind exists is essential to the whole argument by which we 
infer that the Deity exists. This belief ... is the foundation 
of Natural Theology in all its branches ; and upon the scheme of 
materialism no rational, indeed no intelligible, account can be given 
of a first cause, or of the creation or government of the universe.'' 

In a foot-note, Lord Brougham adds : — " It is worthy of observation 
that not the least allusion is made inDr. Paley's work to the argument 
here stated, although it is the foundation of the whole of Natural 
Theology. Not only does this author leave entirely untouched the 
argument a priori (as it is called), and also all the inductive arguments 
derived from the phenomena of mind, but he does not even advert to 
the argument upon which the inference of design must of necessity 
rest — that design which is the whole subject of his book. Nothing 
can more evince nis distaste or incapacity for metaphysical researches. 
He assumes the very position which alone sceptics dispute. In com- 
bating him they would assert that he begged the whole question ; for 
certainly they do not deny, at least in modern times, the fact of adap- 
tation. As to the fundamental doctrine of causation, not the least 

6 A 



84 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



allusion is ever made to it in any of his writings, — even in his Moral 
Philosophy. " 

It is when reviewing this last-named treatise that Dr. Whewell 
remarks (History of Moral Philosophy, p. 169) : — 

" The fact is that Paley had no taste, and therefore we may be 
allowed to say that he had little aptitude, for metaphysical disquisi- 
tions. In this there would have been no blame, if he had not entered 
into speculations which, if they were not metaphysically right, must 
be altogether wrong. We often hear persons declare that they have 
no esteem for metaphysics, and intend to shun all metaphysical reason- 
ings ; and this is usually the prelude to some specimen of very bad 
metaphysics : for I know no better term by which to designate the 
process of misunderstanding and confounding those elements of truth 
which are supplied by the relations of our own ideas. That Paley 
had no turn or talent for the reasoning which depends on such relations, 
is plain enough." 

The reader may with little trouble collect for himself what is meant 
by bad metaphysics from the following extracts. The first is Lord 
Macaulay's criticism on the metaphysics of the Schools, which he in- 
troduces into his essay on Francis Bacon, as follows : — 

" By stimulating men to the discovery of useful truth, he " (Bacon) 
" furnished them with a motive to perform the inductive process well 
and carefully. His predecessors had been, in his phrase, not inter- 
preters, but anticipators of nature. They had been content with the 
first principles at which they had arrived by the most scanty and 
slovenly induction. And why was this ? It was, we conceive, because 
their philosophy proposed to itself no practical end — because it was 
merely an exercise of the mind. A man who wants to contrive a new 
machine or a new medicine has a strong motive to observe accurately 
and patiently, and to try experiment after experiment. But a man 
who merely wants a theme for disputation or declamation has no such 
motive. He is therefore content with premises grounded on assump- 
tion, or on the most scanty and hasty induction. Thus, we conceive, 
the schoolmen acted. On their foolish premises they often argued 
with great ability ; and as their object was " assensum subjugare, non 
res " (Nov. Org. I. Aph. 29), to be victorious in controversy, not to be 
victorious over nature, they were consistent. For just as much logical 
skill could be shown in reasoning on false as on true premises."* Of 
course, if any genuine metaphysical philosophy -exists at all, its right 
and real object must be to try and discover true premises of the more 



* Macaulay's Essays. Ed. 1852, p. 401. 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER II. 85 



abstract sort — premises, the truth of which affects the procedure of all 
the ancillary series.* 

Our next quotation contains Hume's sentence of execution rather 
than critique upon metaphysics as he saw them in connection with 
dogmatic theology. First, for his fiery anathema : — 

" When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what 
havoc must we make ? If we take in our hand any volume of divinity 
or School metaphysics, for instance, let us ask, Does it contain any 
abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number ? No. Does it con- 
tain any experimental reasoning concerning matters of fact and existence? 
No. Commit it then to the flames : For it can contain nothing but 
sophistry and illusion." (Inquiry concerning Human Understanding, 
§ XII.) Alas for certain of Hume's own speculations ! 

The student of Positivism knows how this fierce invective was 
echoed and re-echoed by Comte and his followers. They, however, 
omitted the qualifying word " School," which Hume prefixed to meta- 
physics. With Comte, metaphysic of every kind was " anathema 
maranatha"; and even psychology got excommunicated, byway of 
making " a clean sweep." 

Hume, on the contrary, had an idea of what philosophy ought to 
be, and thus outlined his preparation for a Metaphysic of the Future : — 

" The only method of freeing learning, at once, from these abstruse 
questions, is to inquire seriously into the nature of human understand- 
ing, and show, from an exact analysis of its powers and capacity, that 
it is by no means fitted for such remote and abstruse subjects. We 
must submit to this fatigue in order to live at ease ever after : and 
must cultivate true metaphysics with some care, in order to destroy 
the false and adulterate. Indolence, which, to- some persons, affords 
a safeguard against this deceitful philosophy, is, with others, over- 
balanced by curiosity ; and despair, which at some moments prevails, 
may give place afterwards to sanguine hopes and expectations. Accu- 
rate and just reasoning is the only catholic remedy, fitted for all per- 
sons and all dispositions ; and is alone able to subvert that abstruse 
philosophy and metaphysical jargon, which, being mixed up with 

* The division of Sciences into ancillary and " architectonic " is Aristotelian. 
It seems also founded in the nature of things. That real science tends to ground 
itself, strives after unification with kindred sciences, and, by so doing, rises iuto 
philosophy, is a fact visible in every line and letter of Faraday ; and the general 
reader will find it exemplified throughout many fascinating pages of Dr. Tyndall's 
Fragments of Science for Unscientific People, particularly in his articles on Vitality, 
the use of the Imagination, and the life of Faraday, not to mention his own book 
on the great inductive philosopher. 



86 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



popular superstition, renders it in a manner impenetrable to careless 
reasoners, and gives it the air of science and wisdom. 

" Besides this advantage of rejecting, after deliberate inquiry, the 
most uncertain and disagreeable part of learning, there are many- 
positive advantages, which result from an accurate scrutiny into the 
powers and faculties of human nature. It is remarkable concerning 
the operations of the mind, that though most intimately present to us, 
yet, whenever they become the object of reflection, they seem involved 
in obscurity ; nor can the eye readily find those lines and boundaries 
which discriminate and distinguish them. The objects are too fine to 
remain long in the same aspect or situation, and must be apprehended, 
in an instant, by a superior penetration, derived from nature, and im- 
proved by habit and reflection. It becomes, therefore, no inconsider- 
able part of science barely to know the different operations of the mind, 
to separate them from each other, to class them under their proper 
heads, and to correct all that seeming disorder in which they lie in- 
volved, when made the object of reflection and inquiry. This task of 
ordering and distinguishing, which has no merit when performed with 
regard to external bodies, the objects of our senses, rises in its value 
when directed towards the operations of the mind, in proportion to 
the difficulty and labour which we meet with in performing it. And if 
we can go no farther than this mental geography, or delineation of the 
distinct parts and powers of the mind, it is at least a satisfaction to go 
so far ; and the more obvious this science may appear (and it is by no 
means obvious), the more contemptible still must the ignorance of it 
be esteemed, in all pretenders to learning and philosophy." Ibid. 
Section I. 

It seems worth while to consider what the effects might have been, 
had Hume been faithful to his own idea.* In the first place he would 
have remedied the weakness pointed out by Macaulay in the premises 
of the schoolmen, which were in fact little better than sententious 
maxims often derived from mistranslated passages of Scripture, one- 
sided opinions of the Fathers, and other sources of doubtful value. 
These, Hume would have abscided altogether, and rested his " true 

* It is interesting to compare the French-Scotch, and German-Scotch types of 
intellect. The former flowered in the Stuart men and in David Hume. The latter 
produced such diversely graven characters as Sir William Hamilton and Mr. 
Carlyle. Hume's natural acuteness received a subtle refinement from his Jesuit 
educators at La Fleche. But his intellectual bent and determination was given by 
the French parlour-philosophy, which heralded Rousseau and Robespierre. Hume's 
well-known face is a truthful index to his mind. If compared with Kant's, the 
lesson is obvious to even an unskilled physiognomist. Self-complacency beams 
over every feature. 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER II. 



87 



metaphysics " upon such principles as survived a searching inquiry 
into the conditions of Human knowledge. Hence, secondly, he would 
have rendered a great service to Divinity itself, which can never be 
benefited by such arguments as have been described, but must look 
for a safe alliance to a synthesis of Faith and Eeason. And in the 
third place he might have probably given to his country a critical 
Philosophy adapted to English modes of Thought. Kant's mind was 
fired by a spark of Hume's kindling, but when we think what might 
have been the shape and acceptance of Kant in this country had Hume 
heralded him by a critique of Reason, it is impossible to read the 
great Scotchman's writings without a feeling of disappointment.* 

It would however be unjust to omit the fact that Hume did really 
entertain a serious intention of dealing with these difficult questions. 
Thus much is expressed in his earliest work, and we may conjecture 
that literary disappointment was at least one cause of that later pre- 
ference for "easy philosophy" which contrasts so strongly with the 
programme of his treatise on Human Nature. Few programmes were 
ever more vigorously outlined, than the ensuing. 

" From hence," he says, "in my opinion, arises that common pre- 
judice against metaphysical reasonings of all kinds, even amongst 
those who profess themselves scholars, and have a just value for every 
other part of literature. By metaphysical reasonings, they do not 

* No doubt the actual course of Hume's philosophising was determined by his 
zeal against everything he deemed superstitious. It was this dominant motive 
which made him less a calm philosopher than a skilful advocate, and laid him open 
to the influences of the French Deism of his period. How strong the tendency 
was we may infer from the following anecdote, which occurs in an account of his 
declining days by his friend and admirer, Dr. Adam Smith (pp. 47-50) : — 

Hume had been " reading a few days before, Lucian's Dialogues of the Dead : 
among all the excuses which are alleged to Charon for not entering readily into his 
boat, he could not find one that fitted him. He then diverted himself with in- 
venting several jocular excuses, which he supposed he might make to Charon, and 
with imagining the very surly answers which it might suit the character of Charon 
to return to them. c Upon further consideration,' said he, ' I thought I might say 
to him, Good Charon, I have been correcting: my works for a new edition. Allow 
me a little time that I may see how the Public receives the alterations.' But 
Charon would answer, ' When you have seen the effect of these, you will be for 
making other alterations. There will be no end of such excuses ; so, honest friend, 
please step into the boat. ' But I might still urge, ' Have a little patience, good 
Charon ; I have been endeavouring to open the eyes of the Public. If I live a few 
years longer, I may have the satisfaction of seeing the downfall of some of the 
prevailing systems of superstition.' But Charon would then lose all temper and 
decency. ' You loitering rogue, that will not happen these many hundred years. 
Do you fancy I will grant you a lease for so long a term ? Get into the boat this 
instant, you lazy loitering rogue ! ' " 



88 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



understand those on any particular branch of science, but every kind 
of argument, which is any way abstruse, and requires some atten- 
tion to be comprehended. We have so often lost our labour in such 
researches, that we commonly reject them without hesitation, and 
resolve, if we must for ever be a prey to errors and delusions, that 
they shall at least be natural and entertaining. And, indeed, nothing 
but the most determined scepticism, along with a great degree of 
indolence, can justify this aversion to metaphysics. For, if truth be 
at all within the reach of human capacity, 'tis certain it must lie very 
deep and abstruse ; and to hope we shall arrive at it without pains, 
while the greatest geniuses have failed with the utmost pains, must 
certainly be esteemed sufficiently vain and presumptuous. I pretend 
to no such advantage in the philosophy I am going to unfold, and 
would esteem it a strong presumption against it, were it so very easy 
and obvious." — Treatise on Human Nature, Introduction, p. 12. 

In these sentences Hume has sufficiently condemned the vulgar 
objections brought against abstract reasoning. Deep and difficult 
questions can be discussed in no other manner ; and what is often 
called a popular treatise on some subject of philosophic inquiry can 
never be more than a statement of its writer's opinions, or possibly of 
his sentimental prejudices. 

The next paragraph contains Hume's earliest * sketch of that criti- 
cal inquiry into Human Nature on which he proposed to base all 
future philosophy. It is of course deeply interesting. 

' ' 'Tis evident that all the sciences have a relation, greater or less, 
to human nature ; and that however wide any of them may seem to 
run from it, they still return back by one passage or another. Even 
Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, and Natural Religion, are in some 
measure dependent on the science of Man ; since they lie under the 
cognizance of men, and are judged of by their powers and faculties. 

" 'Tis impossible to tell what changes and improvements we might 
make in these sciences were we thoroughly acquainted with the extent 
and force of human understanding, and could explain the nature of 
the ideas we employ, and of the operations we perform in our reason- 
ings. And these improvements are the more to be hoped for in natu- 
ral religion, as it is not content with instructing us- in the nature of 
superior powers, but carries its views further, to their disposition 
towards us, and our duties towards them ; and consequently we our- 

* The " Treatise " was written during his youthful three years' residence in 
France, chiefly at La Fleche. Hume was twenty-seven years old when he pub- 
lished it. See "Life," pp. 6 and 7, and Burton's Life of Hume, Vol. I. pp. 
57-124. 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER II. 



89 



selves are not only the beings that reason, but also one of the objects 
concerning which we reason." 

"If, therefore, the sciences of mathematics, natural philosophy, 
and natural religion, have such a dependence on the knowledge of 
man, what may be expected in the other sciences, whose connection 
with human nature is more close and intimate ? ... In these 
four sciences of Logic, Morals, Criticism, and Politics, is compre- 
hended almost everything which it can any way import us to be 
acquainted with, or which can tend either to the improvement or 
ornament of the human mind. 

" Here then is the only expedient, from which we can hope for 
success in our philosophical researches, to leave the tedious lingering 
method, which we have hitherto followed, and instead of taking now 
and then a castle or village on the frontier, to march up directly to 
the capital or centre of these sciences, to human nature itself ; which 
being once masters of, we may everywhere else hope for an easy vic- 
tory. From this station we may extend our conquests over all those 
sciences) which more intimately concern human life, and may after- 
wards proceed at leisure to discover more fully those which are the 
objects of pure curiosity. There is no question of importance, whose 
decision is not comprised in the science of man ; and there is none, 
which can be decided with any certainty, before we become acquainted 
with that science. In pretending, therefore, to explain the principles 
of human nature, we in effect propose a complete system of the 
sciences, built on a foundation almost entirely new, and the only one 
upon which they can stand with any security." * Ibid. pp. 13-14. 

The present writer has a special interest in citing these passages, 
because they do in fact defend as well as describe the procedure of 
his very next chapter. 

Such then at an early age was Hume's keen-edged critical appre- 
ciation of those intellectual conditions required for a Philosophy of 
the Sciences, or as he calls it, the " true Metaphysics." In order to 
supplement his clever and clear idea by a very practical delineation of 
the metaphysical territory, we turn to another great thinker, the 
founder of our modern natural science, the great Lord Yerulam.f 

* This work, the least known of all Hume's writings, but not the least original, 
is here cited in the not uncommon reprint 2 vols 8vo, 1817. 

t It is curious to compare with both Hume and Bacon a brief dictum of S. T. 
Coleridge. Biog. Lit., last chapter. " Poor unlucky Metaphysics ! And what 
are they ? A single sentence expresses the object and thereby the contents of this 
science. TvQdi veavrov : et Deum quantum licet et in Deo omnia scibis. Know thy- 
self : and so shalt thou know God, as far as is permitted to a creature, and in God 



90 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



Bacon divides Philosophy according to its objects, which are three, 
— God, Nature, Man. Take, then, Natural Philosophy ; it is well 
said that the truth of nature lies deeply hidden, and it is also well 
said that the Producer imitates Nature. Natural Philosophy divides 
itself accordingly into the inquisition of causes and the production 
of effects ; it is both speculative and operative. There is indeed 
an intercourse between causes and effects, and both these kinds of 
knowledge. All true and fruitful Natural Philosophy has a double 
scale or ladder, — ascendent and descendent ; ascending from experi- 
ment to first causes ; descending thence to fresh experiment and 
always fresh productiveness.* 

The ascending half is divided into two moieties, of which one is the 
science of Physics, the other of Metaphysics. In distinguishing these 
two, Bacon so far agrees with antiquity as to say, — " That Physic 
supposes in nature only a being and moving and natural necessity ; 
whereas Metaphysic supposes also a Mind and Idea. For that which 
I shall say comes perhaps to this."! Or, to put it in another light, 
he writes elsewhere : — " Physique, taking it according to the deri- 
vation, and not according to our idiom for medicine, is situate in a 
middle term or distance between natural history and Metaphysique. 
For natural history describeth the variety of things ; Physique, the 
causes, but variable or respective causes ; and Metaphysique, the 
fixed and constant causes." \ 

In order to clear the way for his Metaphysic of the future, Bacon 
subjects what had been called by that name to a critical process. He 
separates from it a kind of theoretical philosophy, the attainment of 
which he considered doubtful, though he desired that it should be 
attempted, as the ultimate goal of human wisdom. The object of 
the separation is, therefore, to leave his metaphysical science within 
the limits of what is certainly attainable, — a fact not to be lost sight 
of in its relation to the abstract subjects in which we are now specially 
interested. The separated realm of knowledge Bacon calls "First 
and Summary Philosophy"; it is a "common ancestor to all know- 
ledge," § whereas Metaphysic belongs to the philosophy of Nature. 

all things. Surely there is a strange — nay, rather a too natural — aversion in many 
to know themselves." " People," says Guesses at Truth, " can seldom brook con- 
tradiction, except within themselves. " 

* Compare Advancement. B. II. with De Augmentis. B. III. Chap. iii. 

f De Augmentis. B. III. Chap. iv. 

% Advancement. B. II. (Ed. Basil Montague, Vol. II. p. 134). It is generally an 
advantage to quote from the enlarged Treatise, the De Augmentis, but in some 
places the Advancement is more simple and more full. 

§ De Augmentis. B. III. Chap. iv. init. 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER II. 



91 



It is at the apex of his pyramid of knowledges,* — the basis being a 
collection of natural facts — the " stage next the basis," (an investi- 
gation of causes variable and immersed in material existence,) is 
called " Physique — the stage next the vertical point is Metaphy- 
sique."f To enter clearly into Bacon's meaning, two questions 
should be answered : one, what was the wisdom that older Metaphy- 
sicians pursued, respecting which he did not himself feel sanguine ? 
and the other, what remained in his thought the province of practical 
Metaphysique ? 

It is obvious that a wisdom which shall gather up all that every 
other realm of wisdom produces, cast it into Thought's winepress, 
and extract the rarest vintage of Truth, has been the vision of every 
age since men began to inquire and to reason. If this wisdom were 
possible, it would become to us an alphabet of the Universe ; we 
should obtain a clear insight into the world as it is, and the foregone 
work of its Creator. Each of us might truthfully say : — 

" Der du die Welt umschweifst, 

Geschaf tiger Geist, wie nah' fixhl ich mich dir ! " 

It needs but a glance at Bacon's indefinite outline of a First and 
Summary Philosophy, J to see that it must always be greeted by two 
opposite sentences of condemnation. A large section of its censors 

* De Augmentis. B. III. Chap. iv. Ellis and Spedding, iv. 362. 

+ "The cone and vertical point" itself is "the work which God worketh," 
— ("summariam nempe Naturse legem") — and "it may fairly be doubted 
whether man's inquiry can attain to it. But these three are the true stages of 
knowledge." De Augmentis, as before. So too in his Valerius he speaks of this 
" highest generality of motion or summary law of Nature " as reserved by God 
" within His own curtain." 

t The great thinker speaks of it as made up in part " of the common principles 
and axioms which are promiscuous and indifferent to several Sciences ; " in part 
" of the inquiry touching the operation of the relative and adventitious conditions 
of Essences, as quantity, similitude, diversity, possibility, and the rest." These 
he terms " Transcendentals, " and they form a highest kind of philosophical arrange- 
ments, " with this distinction and provision, that they be handled as they have 
efficiency in Nature and not logically." 

His instances of common principles show how very vaguely this idea of the first 
division floated before his mind. Some of them are axioms mathematically certain 
and true in more than one province of philosophy, others are generalized truths 
obtained by experience or by comparison of objects diverse in appearance, but to his 
mind identical or very similar. Among these latter occurs his celebrated saying, that 
"the delight of the quavering upon a stop in music is the same with the playing of 
light upon the water " ;— a thought that haunts us by the seaside and on the shore 
of mountain lakes while listening to some sweet voice or clear-toned instrument. 

From his philosophical arrangements Bacon takes away inquiries into the One, 
the Good, and the Divine, and assigns them to Natural Theology. 



92 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



will pronounce the meagreness of its contents " a gentle riddance," 
or perhaps describe the contents themselves still more harshly as 
" rubbish shot here." Another section may compare all that it leaves 
for Metaphysics to the year without its spring, or Shakespeare's 
masterpiece of philosophy with the part of Hamlet left out. 

Let us see then how the reserved province was parcelled out.— 
Bacon himself remarks : — " It may fairly therefore now be asked, 
what is left remaining for Metaphysic ? Certainly nothing beyond 
nature ; but of nature itself much the most excellent part." Most 
excellent because "Physic handles that which is most inherent in 
matter and therefore transitory, and Metaphysic that which is more 
abstracted and fixed. And again, that Physic supposes in nature only 
a being and moving and natural necessity : whereas Metaphysic sup- 
poses also a mind and idea."* 

This search into the Mind of Nature is divided into the investigation 
of two kinds of causes, still called the Formal and the Final. Bacon's 
doctrine of Forms — the Philosophy in which is embraced " Natura 
naturans " — nature engendering nature — the Queen of Art — and the 
Begent of Production, constitutes one of the most difficult parts of the 
Novum Organum, the Advancement, and the De Augmentis ; and may 
have been one chief provocative to King James' irreverent similitude. 
It might, according to some writers, even now prove a veritable 
" peace of God " could we only grasp its full meaning. " From the 
discovery of Forms," says Bacon, " results truth in speculation and 
freedom in operation. "f And his latest commentator believes that 
this field of discovery has not been truly explored, because its very 
idea has been only imperfectly apprehended. The whole question, 
however, belongs to a future Chapter of this Essay, where we propose 
examining the Law of Production in its most refined and abstract 
shape. Yet one further remark may be allowed here. According to 
Francis Bacon, one " respect which ennobles this part of Metaphysic, 
is that it enfranchises the power of men to the greatest liberty, and 
leads it to the widest and most extensive field of operation. . . . 
For physical causes give light and direction to new inventions in 
similar matter. But whosoever knows any Form, knows also the 
utmost possibility of superinducing that nature upon every variety of 
matter, and so is less restrained and tied in operation, either to the 
basis of the matter or to the condition of the efficient." | 

* Translation of the De Augmentis in Ellis and Spedding. Vol. iv. p. 346. 

t Nov. Org. E. and S., iv. 120. 

% De Augmentis. E. and S., iv. 362. 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CM AFTER II. 



93 



We are more concerned, at the present stage of this Essay, with 
the second portion of Bacon's Metaphysique — the Inquiry into Final 
Causes. They are described in the Advancement as Dot having been 
neglected before its great Author's time, but as having been " mis- 
placed." "For they are," he writes in the De Augm.(E. & S. iv. p. 363) 
" generally sought for in Physic, and not in Metaphysic. And yet if 
it were but a fault in order I should not think so much of it ; for 
order is matter of illustration, but pertains not to the substance of 
sciences. But this misplacing has caused a notable deficience, and 
been a great misfortune to Philosophy. For the handling of final 
causes in Physics has driven away and overthrown the diligent inquiry 
of physical causes." . . . . " And I say this, not because those 
final causes are not true and worthy to be inquired in metaphysical 
speculations ; but because their excursions and irruptions into the 
limits of physical causes has bred a waste and solitude in that track. 
For otherwise, if they be but kept within their proper bounds, men 
are extremely deceived if they think there is any enmity or repug- 
nancy at all between the two." (Ibid. p. 364.) Bacon's meaning is 
indeed clear enough to those who consider his examples. We do not 
learn how clouds are produced by being told they serve for watering 
the earth. It is no history of our earth itself, to say that its " solid- 
ness is for the station and mansion of living creatures." " To know 
the actual nature of a thing," observes an Oxford commentator on 
the Organum, " we must investigate it in and for itself, not for its 
results."* 

Perhaps one of the most curious facts relating to the "misplace- 
ment " of Final Causes is that few more flagrant instances of that 
abuse can be found than some which occur in the field, not of physical 
but of moral science. The following remarkable example is from an 
argument framed by Mr. James Mill against Sir J. Macintosh, which 
appears all the more worthy of quotation, because it is reproduced 
and approved by Mr. J. Stuart Mill. The whole argument deserves 
perusal as showing how easily an acquired and customary kind of 
association will sometimes predominate over free thought ; but for 
our present object a few passages will suffice. The italics are not 
Mr. Mill's, but are here marked for the purpose of guiding the reader's 

* Kitchin. Nov. Org. p. 134. But Mr. Kitchin believes that could Bacon have 
witnessed the actual progress of science, it would have led him to recognize the 
usefulness of Final Causes, in the field of physical inquiry, and by way of illustra- 
tion proceeds to quote " the famous case of Harvey's discovery of the circulation 
of the blood from the consideration of the Final Causes of the valves in the veins 
of the animal body." (Ibid. p. 135.) , 



94 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



eye to those steps which lead from final cause (or motive) to interest, 
from interest to Utility in its grossest form, the artificial creation, 
namely, of our spur to interested action, dignified by this author with 
the sacred name of Morality, both in essence, i.e., what makes an act 
to be moral — and in respect of our moral sense, i.e., what are the 
sentiments with which we regard our own actions and those of other 
persons. 

" Men make classifications, as they do everything else, for some 
end. Now, for what end was it that men, out of their innumerable 
acts, selected a class, to which they gave the name of moral, and 
another class, to which they gave the name of immoral ? What was 
the motive of this act ? What its final cause ? 

"Assuredly the answer to this question is the first step, though Sir 
James saw it not, towards the solution of his two questions, compre- 
hending the whole of ethical science ; first, what makes an act to be 
moral ? and, secondly, what are the sentiments with which we regard 
it ? 

" We may also be assured, that it was some very obvious interest 
which recommended this classification ; for it was performed, in a 
certain rough way, in the very rudest states of society. 

" Farther, we may easily see how, even in very rude states, men 

were led to it, by little less than necessity They had 

no stronger interest than to obtain the repetition of the one sort, and 

to prevent the repetition of the other And here we 

clearly perceive the origin of that important case of classification, 
the classification of acts as moral and immoral. The acts, which it 
was important to other men that each individual should perform, but 
in which the individual had not a sufiicient interest to secure the per- 
formance of them, were constituted one class. The acts, which it was 
important to other men that each individual should abstain from, but 
in regard to which he had not a personal interest sufficiently strong to 
secure his abstaining from them, were constituted another class. The 
first class were distinguished by the name moral acts ; the second by 
the name immoral. 

"The interest which men had in securing the performance of the 
one set of acts, the non-performance of the other, led them by a sort 
of necessity to think of the means. They had to create an interest, 
which the actor would not otherwise have, in the performance of the 
one sort, the non-performance of the other. And in proceeding to 
this end, they could not easily miss their way. They had two powers 
applicable to the purpose. They had a certain quantity of good at 
their disposal, and they had a certain quantity of evil. .... 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER II. 



95 



And this is the scheme which they adopted ; and which, in every 
situation, they have invariably pursued. The whole business of the 
moral sentiments, moral approbation, and disapprobation, has this for 
its object, — the distribution of the good and evil we have at command, 
for the production of acts of the useful sort, the prevention of acts of 
the contrary sort. Can there be a nobler object? " * 

Some people may think that all nobleness is here taken away from 
moral distinctions. Others may wonder how such refined calculation 
could take place " in the very rudest states of Society." Many more 
will feel that this factitious interest is not the moral sentiment of which 
they are themselves conscious. We defer these points, however, to a 
future chapter, and are satisfied now with calling attention to the 
"misplacement" of final causes. To any modern versed (as Bacon 
was) in the wisdom of the mediaeval schools, the following parallel 
might appear complete. Ask two questions— what are clouds ? — what 
are moral distinctions ? — let a " why " be substituted for the " what." 
Both are classified by men, both may be defined by their subserviency 
to human interests, — it is sufficient to discover some use in each. 
Moral distinctions exist for the benefit of society, clouds are for 
watering the earth. An earth-watering contrivance .describes not only 
one use but the whole nature of a cloud ; and for morality can a 
nobler definition be found than that of a notion invented and named 
on Utilitarian principles and promoting a public interest ? f Doubt- 

* Mill's Analysis of the Human Mind. Vol. ii. pp. 310, 11. 

t In a volume of philosophical Eomance some unknown Gulliver of the 19th 
century bestows many pages of pleasant satire on the Utilitarian principle, assumed 
as a maxim of social life and pushed to its ultimate conclusions. The author 
travels into the country of Nowhere (Erewhon), and learns by personal experience, 
first in a prison, and next in the house of a princely swindler Senoj Nbsnibor (alias 
Jones Robinson) those true laws of Sociology which best subserve the great final 
end — the noble object laid down by Mr. Mill. Jll-health is made criminal. Im- 
morality counts as being out of sorts. The former is an object of penal justice, 
the latter of condolence joined with alterative discipHne. The swindler sends for 
his family " straightener, " and gets well amidst the sympathy of his friends ; the 
consumptive is condemned to imprisonment and hard labour for the rest of his 
miserable days. And this is reasonable in itself, and justified by the resiilts, — the 
Erewhonians possess the finest physique in the world, and rob and embezzle only 
when they happen to feel tempted. Our traveller himself, though full of old- 
fashioned moral prejudices, becomes convinced by contemplating the great final 
cause. "That dislike," he observes, "and even disgust should be felt by the for- 
tunate for the unfortunate, or at any rate for those who have been discovered to 
have met with any of the more serious and less familiar misfortunes, is not only 
natural, but desirable for any society, whether of man or brute : what progress 
either of body or soul had been otherwise possible ?" — and again, '* I write with 
great diffidence, but it seems to me that there is no unfairness in punishing people 



96 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



less morality does benefit mankind — doubtless clouds do water the 
earth. But in either case is the good effect its full and comprehensive 
" why ?" — to say nothing of the desiderated " what ? " 

Francis Bacon (as we have seen) strongly affirmed that between 
Physical Causes and Final Causes " kept within their proper bounds, 
men are extremely deceived if they think there is any enmity or 
repugnancy at all." The manner in which, according to the Baconian 
doctrine, these two sets of causes harmonize and supplement each 
other, so as conjointly to subserve the highest purpose of Natural 
Theology, cannot be better explained than in the words of Bacon's late 
lamented Editor, Mr. R. Leslie Ellis : — 

"It is not sufficiently remarked that final causes have often been 
spoken of without any reference to a benevolent intention. When it 
is said that the final cause of a stone's falling is ' locus deorsum,' the 
remark is at least but remotely connected with the doctrine of an 
intelligent providence. We are to remember that Bacon has expressly 
censured Aristotle for having made use of final causes without refer- 

for their misfortunes or rewarding them for their sheer good luck : it is the normal 
condition of human life that this should be done, and no right-minded person will 
complain at being subjected to the common treatment. There is no alternative 
open to us. It is idle to say that men are not responsible for their misfortunes. 
What is responsibility ? Surely to be responsible means to be liable to have to give 
an answer should it be demanded, and all things which live are responsible for their 
lives and actions, should society see fit to question them through the mouth of its 
authorised agent. What is the offence of a lamb that we should rear it, and tend 
it, and lull it into security, for the express purpose of killing it ? Its offence is the 
misfortune of being something which society wants to eat, and which cannot 
defend itself. This is ample. Who shall limit the right of society except society 
itself ?. And what consideration for the individual is tolerable unless society be the 
gainer thereby ? " Erewhon, pp. 85, 86, and 100, 101. 

These sentiments considered, the reader will not be surprised to learn that our 
author, after a preparatory college training in the main doctrines of Self-interest — 
to wit, Evasion and Inconsistency — ends happily and usefully for himself by the 
successful abduction of his host's daughter — and by advertising a propaganda of 
certain European manners and observances unknown in Erewhon, to be carried out 
by kidnapping its healthy inhabitants and training them properly on our sugar 
plantations. What genuine disciple of Utilitarianism can conceive a brighter 
moral triumph than the union of private self-interest with the interested aims of 
a great sugar-growing people ? Matter-of-fact Baconians may argue that Utility 
substitutes a misplaced and one-sided "why" for the "what" required by 
Moralists, — but our traveller's answer is plain — he argues on data; — given the pre- 
mises — his is the inevitable conclusion. The defence of the former will be an 
interest to plenty of people — philosophic and unphilosophic. Leave the data to 
them ; or if necessary make a further appeal to the religious aims of society. In 
Erewhon the great feminine Divinity Ydgrun is supreme ; she is sovereign 
amongst ourselves also ; — only we twist her name and call the Goddess " Grundy." 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER II. 



97 



ring to the fountain from which they flow, namely the providence of 
the Creator. And in this censure he has found many to concur. 

" Again, in any case in which the benevolent intention can be per- 
ceived, we are at liberty to ask by what means and according to what 
laws this benevolent intention is manifested and made efficient. If 
this question is not to be asked, there is in the first place an end of 
physical science, so far as relates to every case in which a benevolent 
intention has been or can be recognised ; and in the second, the argu- 
ment a posteriori founded on the contrivance displayed in the works 
of creation is entirely taken away. 

" This is, in effect, what Bacon says in the passage of the De 
Augmentis, in which he complains of the abuse of final causes. If, 
he affirms, the physical cause of any phenomenon can be assigned as 
well as the final, so far is this from derogating from our idea of the 
divine wisdom, that on the contrary it does but confirm and exalt it."* 

Before passing from this subject the reader's attention may be 
drawn to two notes by the same eminent commentator. Bacon re- 
marks (Nov. Org. I. 48) that Final Causes are " ex natura hominis " 
i.e., have relation to the nature of Man. " It is difficult," writes Mr. 
Ellis, "to assent to the assertion that the notion of the final cause, 
considered generally, is more ex natura hominis than that of the 
efficient. The subject is one of which it is difficult to speak accu- 
rately ; but it may be said that wherever we think that we recognise 
a tendency towards a fulfilment or realisation of an idea, there the 
notion of the final cause comes in. It can only be from inadvertence 
that Professor Owen has set the doctrine of the final cause as it were 
in antithesis to that of the unity of type : by the former he means 
the doctrine that the suitability of an animal to its mode of life is the 
one thing aimed at or intended in its structure. It cannot be doubted 
that Aristotle would have recognised the preservation of the type as 
not less truly a final cause than the preservation of the species or than 
the well-being of the individual. The final cause connects itself with 
what in the language of modern German philosophy is expressed by 
the phrase ' the Idea in Nature.' " f 

The epigrammatic comparison of a Final Cause to a consecrated 
Virgin { has been reviewed by numberless disciples as well as critics 
of our author. Mr. Ellis annotates the Latin text thus : — " Nihil 
parit, means simply, nonparit opera, which though it would have been 
a more precise mode of expression would have destroyed the appo- 

* Preface to the Philosophical "Works, pp. 56, 57. 
f Works. Vol. i. p. 167. 
+ De Augmentis. iii. 5. init. 

7 



98 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



siteness of the illustration. No one who fairly considers the context 
can, I think, have any doubts as to the limitation with which the sen- 
tence in question is to be taken. But it is often the misfortune of a 
pointed saying to be quoted apart from any context, and consequently 
to be misunderstood." And this seems to be a scholarly explanation.* 

To complete the sketch of Baconian Metaphysic it appears only 
needful to add that his respect for the science of Quantity is sufficient 
to make him class under this higher philosophy — this near approach 
to the apex of his Pyramid — the whole circle of Mathematics. 

Our long note will not have been written in vain if the reader bears 
its contents in mind when considering the abstract arguments advanced 
throughout this Essay. It is well to see what very great authorities 
have thought concerning the true use of Metaphysics ; — it is well 
also to see how they ought to be applied in questions of physical 
science, and for the purpose of grounding a science of Natural 
Theology. 



B.— ON THE PHRASE "DESIGN IMPLIES A DESIGNER." 

"It has been contended," says Professor Baden Powell, " that in 
one sense it is mere tautology to say that Design implies a Designer." 
(Connexion of Natural and Divine Truth, p. 183.) 

As a matter of fact there can be no doubt that verbal-sounding 
phrases, however useful in a system of Mnemonics, and much in 
favour as political war-cries, always tend to discredit the sober course 
of a philosophic argument. But Paley, though writing popularly, 
did not intend a mere ad captandum effect, as may be seen by a 
reference to his second chapter. He meant by Design and Con- 
trivance to express in brief the conditions he had laid down as 
characteristic of the intentional adaptation of means to definitely 
purposed ends, — with which conditions he appears to have been fully 
satisfied. 

* Dr. Whewell rises into poetry — yet is not more poetical than the philosopher 
on whom he thus comments. "If he " (Bacon) " had had occasion to develop his 
simile, full of latent meaning as his similes so often are, he would probably have 
said, that to these final causes barrenness was no reproach, seeing they ought to 
be, not the mothers but the daughters of our natural sciences ; and that they 
were barren, not by imperfection of their nature, but in order that they might be 
kept pure and undenled, and so fit ministers in the temple of God." — Bridgewater 
Treatise. B. III. Ch. vii. sub. fin. 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER II 



In his 23rd and 24th chapters, where some hasty Jwriter might have 
said " law implies a lawgiver," the Archdeacon prefers to state that 
" a law pre-supposes an agent," and proceeds to argue the statement 
on its merits. "Law," he says, i'is only the mode according to which 
an agent proceeds : it implies a power, for it is the order according 
to which that power acts. Without this agent, without this power, 
which are both distinct from itself, the 1 law ; does nothing ; is 
nothing." (Chapter 23.) He is well satisfied with this argument 
also, and repeats it (slightly varied in form) during the course of his 
next chapter. 

In our comparison of Powell with Paley we were led to remark on 
the diverse meanings of the word Design, and the facility with which 
some authors have glided from one to another among its significations. 
If any thinker believes that the examples he adduces are distinctly 
instances of Foresight, Intention, and Will, he has the Designer full 
in mind before he employs the term Design. But if his instances fall 
short of thus much implicit force, the argument founded on them is a 
worthless verbality.* 

Those who protest against the popular phrase, " Design proves a, 
Designer," say it is a temptation to assume this point — (the one point 
at issue) — over which it skims with such secure ease. But to any 
person in earnest, few things are more irritating than a piece of cool, 
thorough-going assumption. It is like catching a cat and persistently 
calling it a hare. Many visitors at certain Roman Hotels are aware 
that when deprived of ears and tail more Italico and well roasted, the 
resemblance between these two animals may give rise to questions of 
disputed identity. Imagine, now, a party of cat-catchers, who not 
only assume the Identity, but persevere in calling their mongrel curs 
harehounds, and themselves huntsmen. No truer claim in reality do 
a multitude of Design-hunters possess to any higher title than the 
leguleii of Natural Theology. And the blame of their discredit must 
in a great degree be laid upon their words. It is easy to say, " A 
thrown-stone implies a thrower." But suppose the stone about 
which you and I are talking was thrown by the fiery force of a 
volcano ? Must we hence infer the existence of a Cyclops or a Titan ? 

* It is a pleasure to confirm this paragraph by a definition of Design taken from 
a writer who must be frequently quoted in these pages, because his philosophy is 
of unusually wide scope, and embraces the mixed sciences employed by a natura 
theologian : — " We direct our thoughts to an action which we are about to per- 
form ; we intend to do it : we make it our aim : we place it before us, and act 
with purpose (propositum) : we design it, or mark it out beforehand (designo)." — 
Whewell's Elements of Morality, Book L, Chap, i., p. 7. 



100 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



This mode of popular speech reached the climax of absurdity when 
it was gravely argued that " Evolution implies an Evolver." So it 
might appear to the peculiar mind of the speaker ; but how about 
the mind of him who promulgated the evolution-hypothesis ? Stones 
(as we may observe) fly from more than one cause, and there is more 
than one account to be given of the theory of Evolution. 

Enough has been said to show that the phrase commented on in 
this note, prejudices the argument it is intended to assist. It wears 
the appearance of embodying a foregone conclusion ; and gives 
trouble to the honest inquirer, who, in order to estimate reasonings 
at their true value, must translate them into accurate forms of 
speech. 

We may aptly finish these remarks by a quotation from Whewell's 
Aphorisms on the Language of Science. (Aphorism I., Philosophy of 
the Inductive Sciences, II. 483.) " Words borrowed from common 
language, and converted by scientific writers into technical terms, 
have some advantages and some disadvantages. They possess this 
great convenience, that they are understood after a very short 
explanation, and retained in the memory without effort. On the 
other hand they lead to some inconvenience ; for since they have a 
meaning in common language, a careless reader is prone to disregard 
*the technical limitation of this meaning, and to attempt to collect 
their import in scientific books, in the same vague and conjectural 
manner in which he collects the purpose of words in common cases. 
Hence the language of science, when thus resembling common 
language, is liable to be employed with an absence of that scientific 
precision which alone gives it value. Popular writers and talkers, 
when they speak of force, momentum, action, and reaction, and the 
like, often afford examples of the inaccuracy thus arising from the 
scientific appropriation of common terms." 

A similar line of reflection led Coleridge to remark (Biog. Lit., 
Chap, x.) that " the language of the market would be in the schools 
as pedantic, though it might not be reprobated by that name, as the 
language of the schools in the market. The mere man of the world, 
who insists that no other terms but such as occur in common conver- 
sation should be employed in a scientific disquisition, and with no 
greater precision, is as truly a pedant as the man of letters, who, 
either over-rating the acquirements of his auditors, or misled by his 
own familiarity with technical or scholastic terms, converses at the 
wine-table with his mind fixed on his museum or laboratory." And 
such pedantry is, we may add, not uncommonly just as perspicuous 
as the definition which, says old Glanvill, "was lately given of a 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER II. 101 



Thought in a University Sermon — viz. A Repentine Prosiliency jumping 
into Being.''' (Defence of the Vanity of Dogmatizing, Actio Decima, p. 
61, ed. 1.) 



C. — HUME ON THE ANALOGIES OF ART AND NATURE. 

[Referred to in footnote (e)in the preceding Chapter.} 

The statement in the text is shaped as a not unfairly urged scientific 
objection of the kind which might be raised by some actual craftsman 
or producer. An objection identical in essence is thrown by Hume 
into a refined semi-metaphysical shape, and made to turn upon our 
general acquaintance with Human nature contrasted with our general 
ignorance of the Divine. It runs as follows :— 

" The infinite difference of the subjects, replied he," (Hume's 
dramatic Epicurus,) "is a sufficient foundation for this difference 
in my conclusions. In works of human art and contrivance, it is 
allowable to advance from the effect to the cause, and returning back 
from the cause, to form new inferences concerning the effect, and 
examine the alterations which it has probably undergone, or may still 
undergo. But what is the foundation of this method of reasoning ? 
Plainly this ; that man is a being, whom we know by experience, 
whose motives and designs we are acquainted with, and whose 
projects and inclinations have a certain connection and coherence, 
according to the laws which nature has established for the govern- 
ment of such a creature. When, therefore, we find that any work 
has proceeded from the skill and industry of man ; *as we are other- 
wise acquainted with the nature of the animal, we can draw a hundred 
inferences concerning what may be expected from him ; and these 
inferences will all be founded in experience and observation. But 
did we know man only from the single work or production which we 
examine, it were impossible for us to argue in this manner ; because 
our knowledge of all the qualities, which we ascribe to him, being in 
that case derived from the production, it is impossible they could 
point to anything farther, or be the foundation of any new inference. 

" The case is not the same with our reasonings from the works of 
nature. The Deity is known to us only by his productions, and is a 
single being in the universe, not comprehended under any species 
or genus, from whose experienced attributes or qualities, we can, by 



102 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



analogy, infer any attribute or quality in him." (Enquiry concerning 
Human Understanding. Section xi.) 

Hume himself gives in his own character a reply partially veiled 
by the same half-metaphysical style which characterises the objec- 
tion : — 

" There occurs to me (continued I), with regard to your main 
topic, a difficulty which I shall just propose to you without insisting 
on it, lest it lead into reasonings of too nice and delicate a nature. 
In a word, I much doubt whether it be possible for a cause to be 
known only by its effect (as you have all along supposed), or to be of 
so singular and particular a nature, as to have no parallel and no 
similarity with any other cause or object that has ever fallen under 
our observation. It is only when two species of objects are found to 
be constantly conjoined, that we can infer the one from the other : 
and were an effect presented which was entirely singular, and could 
not be comprehended under any known species, I do not see, that we 
could form any conjecture or inference at all concerning its cause. 
If experience and observation and analogy be, indeed, the only guides 
which we can reasonably follow in inferences of this nature ; both the 
effect and cause must bear a similarity and resemblance to other 
effects and causes which we know, and which we have found, in many 
instances, to be conjoined with each other. I leave it to your own 
reflection to pursue the consequences of this principle." (Ibid.) 

The consequences which ought in fairness to be deduced may be 
stated thus. The effect we contemplate, {i.e. Nature,) is not singular 
but can be compared with other effects — those of Art. The com- 
parison is made in respect of certain specific attributes or pro- 
perties upon which the Design analogy turns, so that we may 
reason upwards to certain specific analogies of Causation. Art 
manifests the foreseeing attributes of the human artist, and from 
comparison of these we infer in the Creator like attributes, — what 
Hume elsewhere calls the natural attributes of the Deity. But this 
likeness is properly termed analogical, because of the vast difference 
in the magnitude of the effects from which we thus reason, and of the 
causes to which we reason. As our wisdom and power are propor- 
tionable to our earthly works, so are the Divine wisdom and power 
proportionable to the whole majestic Universe. There is, then, a 
comparison in species, but not in grandeur — the attributes are not 
similar, but analogical. As the Heavens are high above the Earth, 
so are His thoughts higher than our thoughts. 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER II 



103 



D. — THE PANTHEISTIC CONSEQUENCES CHARGED UPON 
PHYSICAL SPECULATIONS. 

The following is the passage from Professor Baden Powell referred 
to in note (7i) of the preceding chapter. Some short extracts were 
also made from it on a previous page. 

" Nothing but the common confused and mistaken notions as to 
laws and causes, could give any colour to the assertion that . . . 
physical speculations tend to substitute general physical laws in the 
place of the Deity ; and that scientific statements of the conclusions 
of Natural Theology are nothing but ill-disguised Pantheism. 

" The utter futility of such inferences is at once seen, when the 
smallest attention is given to the plain distinctions above laid down 
between 1 moral ' and 1 physical ' causation ; and to the proper force 
of the conclusions from natural science establishing the former by 
means of the latter. 

"This distinction obviously points to the very reverse of the asser- 
tion that physical action is identical with its moral cause; the 
essential difference and contrast between them is the very point 
which the whole argument upholds and enforces. 

" Of all forms of philosophical mysticism, the idea of Pantheism 
seems to me one of the most extravagant. Ever-present mind is a 
direct inference from the universal order of nature, or rather only 
another mode of expressing it. But of the mode of existence of that 
mind we can infer nothing. 

" To assert, then, that this universally manifested mind is co- 
existent, or even to be identified, with matter, is at best a mere 
gratuitous hypothesis, and as such wholly unphilosophical in itself, 
and leading to many preposterous consequences. But if further 
supposed to apply in any higher sense as to an object of worship, 
trust, love, obedience, or the like (as is implied in the term Pan- 
theism), it appears to involve moral contradictions of the most startling 
kind. 

" There are, however, many who, though rejecting Pantheism as 
untrue, do not conceive it absurd or contradictory. Much, however, 
will, in all such cases, depend on the precise sense in which it is 
maintained. With some it seems to have been upheld on a fanciful 
analogy with the conception of the human frame animated by an 
indwelling spirit ; as if in a somewhat similar manner the supreme 



104 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



mind might animate nature. Without disputing this in a certain 
sense, the cases surely cannot be considered at all parallel : we do 
not infer the existence of the human mind, from the arrangement and 
adaptation of the bodily organs, nor is it the moral cause of their 
organisation. 

"If Pantheism were asserted merely in the sense of a kind of vital 
or animating principle pervading the material world, I would admit 
that such an idea involves no absurdity, or contradiction, but still I 
should regard it as visionary and unphilosophical. I could but class 
it with the ' vital forces ' which Kepler fancied necessary for keeping 
up the motions of the planets, with the ' plastic powers of nature,' 
' her abhorrence of a vacuum,' and the like chimaeras. But it is 
when men elevate such a supposed animating principle into a Deity, 
a being of supreme wisdom, power, beneficence, and goodness, yet 
residing in every atom of matter, and participating directly in every 
form and case of material action, that the contradiction arises." 
Spirit of the Inductive Philosophy, pp. 176-9. 



E. — THE EXTENT AND DIVISIONS OF THE SCIENCE OF 
NATURAL THEOLOGY. 

The following passages from Professor Powell's Essay " on the 
Spirit of the Inductive Philosophy " will go far to justify the praise 
and blame bestowed upon his mode of procedure in the text of the 
foregoing chapter. But we would recommend his own pages to the 
student's discriminative perusal. 

In extract No. 1, Baden Powell shows with equal truth and force 
that universal Law must be contemplated as a manifestation of one 
supreme Intelligence presiding over the whole Universe. A 
philosopher who looks on Nature with this majestic breadth of view 
does not need for his own deepest convictions to follow Design 
through a multitude of smaller evidences. 

If extract No. 2 could be admitted as a full account of the condi- 
tions and limitations of Natural Theology, our science would seem to 
result in an obscuration of the magnificently Supreme Power already 
accepted. So far as its letter goes, the Creator of the Universe might 
appear to be shut out from the world which He has made. We 
cannot (as has been said) consent to this narrow consideration of 
Natural Theology, nor yet of Powell's meaning. 

Extract No. 3 acknowledges what all physical investigators ought 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER II. 



105 



to acknowledge, — that although their sciences contribute very much 
towards solving the problem of the Universe, and although their 
results readily harmonize with the solution maintained by the Theist 
- — yet there rests over that vast problem a cloud which the physical 
sciences cannot completely dispel. This (as we shall see in Chapter 
V.) is indeed the confession of the greatest minds at present engaged 
upon the philosophy of Natural Science. 

Extract No. 1. — "From the inductive philosophy we derive our 
belief in the harmony, order, and uniformity of natural causes, per- 
petually maintained in a universally connected chain of dependence. 
And hence it is, that we arrive at those sublime ideas of a presiding 
Intelligence of which law and uniformity, universal mechanism once 
for all adjusted, are the proper external manifestations. 

"To the truly inductive philosopher, fate and chance, necessity and 
accident, are words without meaning. To nim, the world is made up 
of recondite combinations of physical laws, and the existence and 
maintenance of those laws are the very indication of a Supreme Mind. 
But chance is irreconcilable with laws, fate with mind, regulated and 
fixed order with blind destiny, fortuitous accident, or arbitrary inter- 
ruption. 

" All rational natural theology advances by tracing the immediate 
mechanical steps and particular processes in detail, and the physical 
causes in which the influences of the Great Moral Cause or Supreme 
Mind are manifested. The greater the number and extent of such 
secondary steps and intermediate processes through which we can 
trace it, the greater the complexity and wider the ramifications of the 
chain of causes, the more powerful and convincing the instruction 
they convey as to the existence and operation of the Divine wisdom 
and power. 

" Yet it is a common mode of illustration to speak of the chain of 
secondary causes reaching up to the First Cause. Or, again, fears 
are entertained of tracing secondary causes too far, so as to intrench 
on the supremacy of the First Cause. But this is an erroneous 
analogy : the maker or designer of a chain is no more at one end of 
it than at the other. The length of the chain in no way alters our 
conviction of its skilful structure, except to enhance it. If the 
number of links were truly infinite, so much the more infinite the 
skill of its framer. 

"Mr. F. Newman observes,* I think most truly, that the common 
arguments from what are called ' secondary causes ' to the 4 First 
Cause ' are unsatisfactory : and I would trace this to the confused 

* The Soul, p. 35. 



106 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



sense in which those terms are commonly used, as already explained ; 
and which, I think, might be entirely removed by attention to the dis- 
tinctions above laid down. "While, on the other hand, I fully acknow- 
ledge that those arguments, when correctly understood, lead only to 
a very limited conclusion ; and one which falls infinitely short of those 
high moral and spiritual intuitions on which Mr. F. Newman grounds 
his religious system, yet in no way discredits or supersedes them." 
Essay, pp. 151-4. 

Extract No. 2. — " In the present state of knowledge, law and 
order, physical causation and uniformity of action, are the elevated 
manifestations of Divinity, creation and providence. Interruptions 
of such order (if for a moment they could be admitted as such) 
could only produce a sort of temporary concealment of such manifesta- 
tions, and involve the beautiful light shed over the natural world in 
a passing cloud. We do not indeed doubt that the sun exists behind 
the cloud, but we certainly do not see it ; still less can we call the 
obscuration a special proof of its presence. The main point in the 
system of order and law is its absolute universality. Exceptions, if 
real, must pro tanto imply a deficiency in the chain of connexion, 
and might, to a sceptical disposition, offer a ground of doubt. 

" But so overwhelming is the mass and body of proof, that no 
philosophic mind would allow such exceptions for a moment to weigh 
against it ; they would be as dust in the balance. A supreme moral 
cause manifested through law, order, and .physical causes, is the 
confession of science : conflicting operations, arbitrary interruptions, 
abrupt discontinuities, are the idols of ignorance, and, if they really 
prevailed, would so far be to the philosopher only the exponents of 
chaos and atheism; the obscuration (as far as they extend) of the 
sensible manifestation of the Supreme Intelligence." Ibid. 165, 6. 

Extract No. 3. — " The whole tenor of the preceding argument is 
directed to show that the inference and assertion of a Supreme Moral 
Cause, distinct from and above nature, results immediately from the 
recognition of the eternal and universal maintenance of the order of 
physical causes, which are its essential external manifestations. 

" Of the mode of action or operation by which the Supreme Moral 
Cause influences the universal order of physical causes, we confess our 
utter ignorance. But the evidence of such operation, where nature 
exists, can never be lost or interrupted. And in proportion as our 
more extended researches exhibit these indications more fully and 
more gloriously displayed, we cannot but believe that our contempla- 
tions are more nearly and truly approaching their Souece." Ibid. 179. 

The reader will not grudge the time he may have bestowed upon 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER II. 



107 



this note if it leads him to a distinct apprehension of the true breadth 
and compass of our science. 

" Natural Theology/' says Kant, " infers the attributes and the 
existence of an author of the world, from the constitution of, the order 
and unity observable in this world, in which two modes of Causality, 
together with their laws, must be accepted — that is to say, Nature 
and Freedom. Thus Natural Theology rises from this world to a 
supreme Intelligence, whether as to the principle of all natural or of 
all moral order and perfection. In the former case it is termed 
Physico-Theology, in the latter Ethical or Moral Theology." This 
last term he explains by adding, "Not theological ethics; for this 
latter science contains ethical laws, which presuppose the existence of 
a Supreme Governor of the world ; while Moral Theology, on the 
contrary, is an evidence of the existence of a Supreme Being, an 
evidence founded upon ethical laws." Kant's Kritik der reinen Ver- 
nunft Transscendental Elementarlehre, s. 7. 

It was from the fulness and depth of a personal conviction on this 
topic that the present writer ventured to assert in 1870 that " The 
conditions under which Natural Theology becomes scientifically 
possible, are found when it supplements Natural Science by a science 
of Right and Wrong," and also that " for the future Natural Theology 
ought to follow this path and no other — unless it wishes to commit 
suicide." These assertions were made in a University Sermon * on 
the question, "Under what Conditions is a Science of Natural 
Theology possible ? " and they were censured as novel and unprece- 
dented by critics who ought to have known better. 



F. — ON TELEOLOGY. 

One consequence of the principle on which this Essay has been 
framed is an endeavour to place before the reader's eye different modes 
of reasoning in the language of their several authors. The method of 
looking at any subject-matter in a diversity of lights naturally leads to 
copiousness of quotation. There can, it is evident, be no varieties of 
thought so undeniably distinct as those which are the actual products 
of diverse minds. 

The maxim which has governed the following selection is what 
Bacon would call a marshalling Idea. They posit one central thought 
and throw light upon it from a circle of separate reflectors. 

* Right and Wrong, p. 31. 



108 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



Let it be observed that such a collection of opinions implies no 
appeal to authority in the narrow sense of the word. There is indeed 
a manifest distinction between authority and authorities — and our 
present appeal is to the latter. No man's ipse dixit can dogmatically 
settle questions which belong to an inquirer's responsible self; but it 
is surely the wisdom of every one who acknowledges the awful sense 
of accountability attendant on the determination of questions affecting 
his central beliefs, to weigh the reasonings of others who have felt the 
same deep impression of their paramount importance. If any one is 
reluctant so to do from an idea that by doing thus much he pays a 
wrongful deference to prejudices, he has in truth assumed the whole 
issue which he is bound to examine. How otherwise can he certainly 
allege that the prejudice is not inherent within himself ? 

Keluctance of this kind would on the present occasion be thoroughly 
misplaced. Authorities as here quoted are neither more nor less than 
the opinions of experts who have a title to be heard each in his own 
proper department. Throughout the practical conduct of life we all 
experience the benefit of laying aside our private spectacles from time 
to time and of looking through the glasses of other men. And in 
questions such as the one now before us, is it possible to do better 
than try whether we can see for ourselves what has been pronounced 
discernible by men who contemplated this world of ours with more 
than ordinary powers of vision ? 

The present writer has a personal interest in bringing together the 
reflections of many who have reached the same resting-place along 
various lines of approach, and who have expressed their conclusions 
with some diversity of language. He has ventured himself on viewing 
the evidences of Natural Theology from a position by no means 
identical with that most commonly occupied by Natural Theo- 
logians. The student, therefore, who takes a wide survey of the 
field will be the critic best prepared to examine the latter part of 
this Essay. 

The first authority quoted among our ample citations is Hume, 
whose appearance as a witness for Natural Theology may surprise 
some readers. As, however, is remarked by an eminent writer in the 
Quarterly, Hume's hard common sense " enabled him when he liked, 
to control the excesses of a speculative imagination and subject it to 
practical reason, as he understood reason's verdict." He even went 
so far as to say that " The whole frame of Nature bespeaks an Intelli- 
gent Author; and no rational inquirer can, after serious reflection, 
suspend his belief a moment with regard to the primary principles of 
genuine Theism and Religion." (Natural History of Religion, Intro- 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER II. 109 



duction.) Indeed, according to Cucheval Clarigny,* Hume was an 
" almost Christian " at certain periods of his life. The repellant forces 
that kept him back, are " not far to seek." 

The following passages refer to the illative analogy which forms the 
proper shape of the argument from Design. 

" That the works of Nature bear a great analogy to the productions 
of art, is evident ; and according to all the rules of good reasoning, 
we ought to infer, if we argue at all concerning them, that their causes 
have a proportional analogy. But as there are also considerable 
differences, we have reason to suppose a proportional difference in the 
causes ; and in particular ought to attribute a much higher degree of 
power and energy to the supreme cause than any we have ever ob- 
served in mankind. Here then the existence of a DEITY is plainly 
ascertained by reason : and if we make it a question whether, on 
account of these analogies, we can properly call him a mind or intelli- 
gence, notwithstanding the vast difference which may reasonably be 
supposed between him and human minds ; what is this but a mere 
verbal controversy ? No man can deny the analogies between the 
effects : To restrain ourselves from inquiring concerning the causes, is 
scarcely possible : From this inquiry, the legitimate conclusion is, that 
the causes have also an analogy : And if we are not contented with call- 
ing the first and supreme cause a GOD or DEITY, but desire to vary 
the expression ; what can we call him but MIND or THOUGHT, to 
whieh he is justly supposed to bear a considerable resemblance ? " Dia- 
logues concerning Natural Religion, Part xii. in Essays, Yol. II. p. 526. f 

* Dans plusieurs passages de ses ecrits, quand il insiste avec le plus de force sur 
l'impossibilite ou. est la raison humaine d'atteindre a la certitude, il semble tout 
pres d'accepter la revelation divine comme source de certaines -grandes verites que 
nous ne saurions repousser, quoiqu'il ne nous soit pas possible de les demontrer. 
Un soir qu'a Paris il soupait chez le baron d'Holbach, on vint a parler de la religion 
naturelle ; Hume declara que pour sa part il n'avait jamais rencontre d'athee. On 
sait la reponse de son hote. ' ' Parbleu, vous avez de la chance ; pour la premiere 
fois vous en rencontrez dix-sept du meme coup." Hume ne demanda point a etre 
compte comme le dix-huitieme. Dix ans auparavant, il se trouvait a Londres 
lorsque lui arriva la nouvelle de la mort de sa mere ; son ami Boyle, frere du comte 
de Glasgow, temoin de la douleur profonde ou. le jeta cette perte, exprima le regret 
qu'il ne put trouver de consolation dans les croyances chretiennes sur la destinee 
des justes et sur la vie future. " Ah ! mon ami," dit Hume en sanglotant, " je peux 
bien publier mes speculations pour occuper les savans et les metaphysiciens ; mait 
ne croyez pas que je sois si loin que vous le supposez de penser comme le reste des 
hommes." Deux Mondes, 1856, Vol. VI., pp. 118, 19. The latter anecdote will be 
found in Burton at rather greater length. Vol. I. 293, 4. 

f These Dialogues were posthumously published in obedience to their author's 
will. Hume had kept the MS. by him for twenty-seven years, and had corrected 



110 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



" If the whole of Natural Theology, as some people seem to main- 
tain, resolves itself into one simple, though somewhat ambiguous, at 
least undefined proposition, That the cause or causes of order in the 
universe probably bear some remote analogy to human intelligence. If 
this proposition be not capable of extension, variation, or more parti- 
cular explication ; if it affords no inference that affects human life, or 
can be the source of any action or forbearance ; and if the analogy, 
imperfect as it is, can be carried no farther than to the human intelli- 
gence, and cannot be transferred, with any appearance of probability, 
to the other qualities of the mind : If this really be the case, what 
can the most inquisitive, contemplative, and religious man do more 
than give a plain, philosophical assent to the proposition, as often as 
it occurs ; and believe that the arguments on which it is established, 
exceed the objections which lie against it ? " Ibid. p. 538. 

The following is the opinion of Cleanthes, upon whom Hume con- 
fers the palm in the dialogue ; — " Take care, Philo, replied Cleanthes ; 
take care ; push not matters too far : allow not your zeal against false 
religion to undermine your veneration for the true. Forfeit not this 
principle, the chief, the only great comfort in life ; and our principal 
support amidst all the attacks of adverse fortune. The most agree- 
able reflection, which it is possible for human imagination to suggest, 
is that of genuine Theism, which represents us as the workmanship of 
a Being perfectly good, wise, and powerful ; who created us for happi- 
ness ; and who, having implanted in us immeasurable desires of good, 
will prolong our existence to all eternity, and will transfer us into an 

it from time to time, yet had delayed publication from deference to the judgment 
of his friends. He directed his literary executor, Adam Smith, to publish the 
Dialogues within two years of his death ; but, in consequence of Smith's distaste 
for the task, this duty devolved upon Hume's nephew. They were printed in 1779 
translated into German in 1781, and commented on by Jacobi in 1787. 

Lowndes states that these Dialogues were not republished with the " Essays," 
but is mistaken in saying so. They appear at the end of Vol. II. in the 8vo. Edi- 
tion of 1788. As this is not an uncommon or expensive book, I quote its paging. 
The quantity of matter extends only through 113 8vo. pages, and reference will 
not be difficult in any other Edition. 

It seems true that the Dialogues were withdrawn from later reprints of the 
Essays. They appear to have been considered particularly objectionable ; but there 
is no doubt that they express Hume's most deliberate and matured convictions, 
and thus become to fair inquirers particularly valuable. It must, however, be 
added that Hume valued himself on a conservatism of opinion. Comparing, when 
forty years old, his recent Essays with his Treatise " planned before I was twenty, 
one and composed before twenty-five," he says, "The philosophical principles are 
the same in both ; but I was carried away by the heat of youth and invention to 
publish too precipitately." Burton, I. 337. 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER II. 



Ill 



infinite variety of scenes, in order to satisfy those desires, and render 
our felicity complete and durable. Next to such a Being himself (if 
the comparison be allowed), the happiest lot which we can imagine, is 
that of being under his guardianship and protection." Ibid. -p. 535.* 

The next three extracts give Hume's opinion on the prevailing 
principle disclosed by the analogy — design, purpose, and the recog- 
nition of final causes : — 

"Though the stupidity of men, barbarous and uninstructed, be so 
great, that they may not see a sovereign author in the more obvious 
works of nature, to which they are so much familiarized ; yet it 
scarce seems possible, that any one of good understanding should reject 
that idea, when once it is suggested to him. A purpose, an inten- 
tion, a design is evident in everything ; and when our comprehen- 
sion is so far enlarged as to contemplate the first rise of this visible 

* There can be no doubt that Cleanthes is meant for the representative man, 
both from the tenor of the Dialogue itself and from a letter to Sir Gilbert Elliot, 
of Minto, given by Burton, I. 331-6. The following extracts may be acceptable 
to the reader : — " You would perceive by the sample I have given you, that I make 
Cleanthes the hero of the dialogue : whatever you can think of, to strengthen 
that side of the argument, will be most acceptable to me. Any propensity you 
imagine I have to the other side, crept in upon me against my will ; and 'tis not 
long ago that I burned an old manuscript book, wrote before I was twenty, which 
contained, page after page, the gradual progress of my thoughts on that head. It 
began with an anxious search after arguments, to confirm the common opinion ; 
doubts stole in, dissipated, returned ; were again dissipated, returned again ; and 
it was a perpetual struggle of a restless imagination against inclination, perhaps 
against reason. ... I could wish Cleanthes' argument could be so analyzed, 
as to be rendered quite formal and regular. The propensity of the mind towards 
it, — unless that propensity were as strong and universal as that to believe in our 
senses and experience, — will still, I am afraid, be esteemed a suspicious foundation. 
'Tis here I wish for your assistance ; we must endeavour to prove that this pro- 
pensity is somewhat different from our inclination to find our own figures in the 
clouds, our faces in the moon, our passions and sentiments even in inanimate 
matter. Such an inclination may, and ought to be controlled, and can never be a 
legitimate ground of assent. 

" The instances I have chosen for Cleanthes are, I hope, tolerably happy, and the 
confusion in which I represent the sceptic seems natural, but — si quid novisti 

rectius, etc He (Cleanthes) allows, indeed, in part 2nd, that all our 

inference is founded on the similitude of the works of nature to the usual effects 
of mind, otherwise they must appear a mere chaos. The only difficulty is, why 
the other assimilations do not weaken the argument ; and indeed it would seem 
from experience and feeling, that they do not weaken it so much as we might 
naturally expect." 

It seems clear on the whole, that, so far as Physico- Theology went, Hume was 
not ill qualified for a Natural Theologian. All the more so perhaps, because, while 
seeing the difficulties which attach themselves to this kind of argument, he pro- 
nounced it to hold conclusively at last. 



112 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



system, we must adopt, with the strongest conviction, the idea of 
some intelligent cause or author. The uniform maxims, too, which 
prevail throughout the whole frame of the universe, naturally, if not 
necessarily, lead us to conceive this intelligence as single and 
undivided, where the prejudices of education oppose not so reason- 
able a theory. Even the contrarieties of nature, by discovering them- 
selves everywhere, become proofs of some consistent plan, and 
establish one single purpose or intention, however inexplicable and 
incomprehensible. ' ' Natural History of Religion XV. — General Corol- 
lary, in Essays II. pp. 422, 3. 

"In many views of the universe, and of its parts, particularly the 
latter, the beauty and fitness of final causes strike us with such 
irresistible force that all objections appear (what I believe they really 
are) mere cavils and sophisms ; nor can we then imagine how it was 
ever possible for us to repose any weight on them." Dialogues con- 
cerning Natural Religion, Part X. in Essays, II. 509. 

" The order and arrangement of nature, the curious adjustment of 
final causes, the plain use and intention of every part and organ ; 
all these bespeak in the clearest language an intelligent cause or 
author. The heavens and the earth join in the same testimony. 
The whole chorus of nature raises one hymn to the praises of its 

Creator I have found a Deity ; and here I stop my 

enquiry. Let those go farther who are wiser or more enterprising." 
Ibid. Part IV. p. 467. 

Hume is conspicuous amongst reasoners on Natural Theology for 
having distinctly comprehended Human Nature along with Nature 
in the cycle of its evidences. " This sentence at least," he writes, 
" Reason will venture to pronounce, That a mental world, or 
universe of ideas, requires a cause as much as does a material world, 
or universe of objects ; and, if similar in its arrangement, must re- 
quire a similar cause. For what is there in this subject which should 
occasion a different conclusion or inference ? In an abstract view, 
they are entirely alike ; and no difficulty attends the one supposition 
which is not common to both of them." Ibid. Part IV. p. 464. 

This statement brings us to the impediments which withheld 
Hume from forming a sublime idea of the Divine Being, such an idea 
as kindles the enthusiasm of devout men, and inspires even timidly 
sensitive souls with deathless confidence in the final triumph of a 
self-sacrificing virtue destined to survive the grave. These causes 
were the opinions he maintained respecting human nature. We may 
lay it down as a universal rule that every one who sees the animal, 
but not the heaven- aspiring moral element in his own nature, and in 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER II. 113 



our common nature, will fail to represent to himself the lineaments or 
reflection of the Divine attributes. An acknowledged kinship with 
brutal passions, the lowering of society and wedlock to animal gre- 
gariousness, of moral principle and the rule of Right and Wrong to a 
perception of Utility, are. fatal hindrances in the search after God ; — 
a search arduous to the best of us, since deep as the far translucent 
heavens, are the majestic thoughts of Him after Whom we strive to 
feel. Now Hume failed to discern the Godlike in Man. " Human 
life," he remarks in his Sceptic, " is more governed by fortune than 
by reason ; is to be regarded more as a dull pastime than as a serious 
occupation ; and is more influenced by particular humour than by 
general principles." Morality is no fixed star in Hume's firmament. 
To omit the laxity of many moral maxims he lays down, the very 
nature and foundations of morality were imperilled by his analytics.* 

* The following quotation is from the Treatise " composed before twenty-five " : 
— " Nor does this reasoning only prove, that morality consists not in any relations, 
that are the objects of science ; but if examined, will prove with equal certainty, 
that it consists not in any matter of fact, which can be discovered by the under- 
standing. This is the second part of our argument ; and if it can be made 
evident, we may conclude, that morality is not an object of reason. But can 
there be any difficulty in proving, that vice and virtue are not matters of fact, 
whose existence we can infer by reason ? . . . So that when you pronounce 
any action or character to be vicious, you mean nothing, but that from the con- 
stitution of your nature you have a feeling or sentiment of blame from the 
contemplation of it. Vice and virtue, therefore, may be compared to sounds, 
colours, heat and cold, which, according to modern philosophy, are not qualities 
in objects, but perceptions in the mind : and this discovery in morals, like that 
other in physics, is to be regarded as a considerable advancement of the specula- 
tive sciences ; though, like that too, it has little or no influence on practice." 
Treatise, Book III., part 1, Vol. II., 170, 1. 

This 3rd Book of the Treatise was not printed till Hume was in his 30th year ; 
and he felt some hesitation respecting the latter paragraph. "Is not this," he 
asks Hutcheson, "laid a little too strong? I desire your opinion of it, though 
I cannot entirely promise to conform myself to it . I wish from my heart I could 
avoid concluding, that since morality, according to your opinion, as well as mine, 
is determined merely by sentiment, it regards only human nature and human 

life If morality were determined by reason, that is the same to all 

rational beings ; but nothing but experience can assure us that the sentiments are 
the same. What experience have we with regard to superior beings ? How can 
we ascribe to them any sentiments at all % They have implanted those sentiments 
in us for the conduct of life like our bodily sensations, which they possess not 
themselves." {Burton, I. 119.) The paragraph was, however, published; and 
helped by consequence to foster in its author's mind that Utilitarian theory of 
morals respecting which many late writers have been only Hume's copyists. In 
this very Treatise he did in fact apply that theory to the most important of 
Social questions (see same Bk., Pt. II. Sec. 12, more especially p. 299), and was 

8 



114 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



" He has," writes Mackintosh, " altogether omitted the circumstance 
on which depends the difference of our sentiments regarding moral 
and intellectual qualities. We admire intellectual excellence, but we 
bestow no moral approbation on it." And again — " He entirely over- 
looks that consciousness of the rightful supremacy of the moral 
faculty over every other principle of human action, without an expla- 
nation of which, ethical theory is wanting in one of its vital organs." 
Ethical Philosophy , pp. 182, 4. "If," says Hume in the Sceptic, 
" we can depend upon any principle which we learn from philosophy, 
this, I think, may be considered as certain and undoubted, that there 
is nothing in itself valuable or despicable, desirable or hateful, beautiful 
or deformed ; but that these attributes arise from the particular consti- 
tution and fabric of human sentiment and affection." And half a dozen 
pages afterwards — " Good and ill, both natural and moral, are entirely 
relative to human sentiment and affection." So too, " The necessity 
of justice to the support of society is," he tells us, " the Sole 
foundation of that virtue;" usefulness, he explains, "is the Sole 
source of the moral approbation paid to fidelity, justice, veracity, 
integrity, and those other estimable and useful qualities and principles." 
It is also " the source of a considerable part of the merit ascribed 
to humanity, benevolence, friendship, public spirit, and other social 
virtues of that stamp." Principles of Morals, Sect. III. sub fin. 
With these sentiments it is not surprising that while he insists on the 
analogy between human workmanship and the natural universe he 
cannot argue analogically from moral Truth to the Divine attributes — 
and even goes so far as to decide that the first causes of the Universe 
" have neither goodness nor malice." 

The student of Natural Theology cannot direct his attention too 
soon or too steadily to the vast share possessed by our moral senti- 

thus led into lax conclusions respecting those bonds between Man and Woman 
which underlie the other foundations of Society. Hume shares this blame with 
his disciples ; for leading Utilitarians are apt to shew by their own domestic 
relations that the principle, ivhen applied, results in maxims lower than our pre- 
sent English tone of thought upon this subject. 

But let us suppose that Hume had lived to analyze Rousseau's Confessions. 
Would he not have urged with the force of truth, that to animalize a Man is to 
destroy his Manhood, to weaken his judgment and impair his Moral sense ? 
Would he not have argued from Rousseau the depraved boy, to Rousseau the shop- 
man and footman, and pointed out that in such cases Truth, Honesty, and 
Gratitude become mere names and shadows ? — No one could have replied that 
Hume was wrong in fact and experience, but some might have said that all which 
lowers the supremacy of the Moral sense lowers the Manhood of Man. As Hume 
admitted the fact of a Moral sense, he might possibly have felt the cogency of 
this argument. 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER II. 



115 



merits in our apprehension of the Divine nature. It is from our 
sense of Eesponsibility attached to each act of Will and Choice that we 
deduce the idea of causation. It is from our intuitions of immutable 
moral truth and the irreconcileable antithesis between Right and 
Wrong that we behold the Martyr as one who has not lived in vain, 
but lives truly and for ever ; and are sure that there exists a God who 
has regard to the righteous, the oppressed, the fatherless, and the 
widow. Clear moral insight appears in Socrates, who chose to die 
rather than offend against the eternal laws. But ought the man to be 
styled moral or immoral who should balance together two comparative 
utilities, — that of preserving his father's life and that of acquiring by 
a judicious neglect, without risk to himself, a property which he re- 
solved to expend usefully ? Of one thing we may be sure, God could 
not be in all his thoughts whilst making such a calculation. 

It is thus that a pure Morality and an' elevated conception of the 
Divine Being act and react upon each other. And in this way our 
speculative and practical Reason become interlaced — the former giving 
to the logical understanding an account of those ideas which form the 
essential sublimity and moving influence of our practical beliefs — the 
springs of our daily and hourly behaviour. There is no more certain 
characteristic of a mind so ordered than its ability to deal with a 
moral doubt which casuists might long debate, to solve the enigma 
within the compass of a moment's thought, and to defend the 
solution by fair and honest argument. As regards our present 
question it makes no difference by what means such a condition of 
mind may have been brought about, but it is plain that a sense of 
accountability has much to do with this condition. And the con- 
nexion between Responsibility and our belief in a life immortal, and 
in a just and veracious God, will form a subject for future considera- 
tion. 

Meantime, the reader must take Hume's acceptance of the doctrine 
of final causes and the Design-analogy, for what it is worth. No 
candid person ought to condemn Hume as he has often been con- 
demned without remembering the allowance to be made for his 
excessive vanity,* his extreme love of paradoxical speculation, and the 

* No one who reads Hume's account of his own motives on various occasions 
will think it untrue to say that his judgment was largely influenced by his vanity. 
Compare for example his well-known letter to Dr. Blair of December 20th, 1765, 
with another to the same, dated 1st July, 1766 ; — the first a panegyric on the 
" celebrated Rousseau," the second a fierce invective against that " blackest and 
most atrocious villain." Who can help seeing that the motives of the eulogy are 
derived from a series of self-gratulations ; — while the cause of the invective is a 
sharp wound given to the philosopher's self-love ? 



116 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



dramatic irony which runs throughout his writings. These are in 
fact some of the qualities which make him an unfit schoolmaster for 
the young, and a shrewd exercise for elder men. One useful lesson 
we gather just now is learned from the fact that he places a wide gulf 
between the natural and moral attributes of the Deity, and draws a 
veil over the latter, because the alleged poverty of our moral ideas 
precludes any analogy to reason upon, however remote that analogy 
may appear. Hence Hume's God of Nature becomes a shadow like 
Wordsworth's Laodamia, scarce fit for the Elysian bowers ; He is no 
longer felt by us to be the God of Human Nature. 

We cannot here omit to observe that Hume had no thought of 
worshipping the Order of the World, or of erecting a temple to 
immutable Laws, blind Force, or any other blank impersonal Neces- 
sity. The limit of his inquiry was what to human reason might 
appear the easiest and most probable interpretation of nature.* This 
question he asked and answered. Whether modern science has added 
important data on which to found a more conclusive reply is a further 
inquiry which we shall have to consider, but meantime it appears 
certain that if the most sceptical theory of the most sceptical scientist 
were held true, there would still remain the same necessity for asking 
Hume's question. For neither our life, nor the world we live in, nor 
the wide universe, have any real cause or aim scientifically assigned 
them. We should still have to inquire by what agency and to what 
purpose we and the All exist ? That we really are is a fact for you, 

* In the Inquiry concerning Human Understanding, Section XL, he puts this 
case : " As the universe shows wisdom and goodness, we infer wisdom and good- 
ness. As it shows a particular degree of these perfections, we infer a particular 
degree of them, precisely adapted to the effect which we examine. But farther 
attributes or farther degrees of the same attributes, we can never be authorized 
to infer or suppose, by any rules of just reasoning." The argument of this section 
upon which Hume's limitations are based, is put into the mouth of a representa- 
tive Epicurus ; it is acute even to extreme subtlety, but it is also suicidal. The 
restraints applied to what he explains as the argument from effects to cause, and 
conversely down again from cause to other effects, cannot be maintained without 
dealing a death blow at the Inductive Philosophy. How little do we know of 
the material Universe, yet we apply the principle of gravitation to the Whole, 
seen and unseen. By its aid we find masses of radiant matter previously unknown, 
and predict events long before they are phenomenally apparent. The vast power 
of extending knowledge which the Inductive principle asserts, will occur for our 
investigation in Chapter IV. Another Epicurean position contained in this same 
Section XI. has been quoted in a previous note, together with Hume's own reply 
to it ; see pp. 101, 2 ante. 

A criticism of Hume's Tenth and Eleventh sections occupies a long note 
appended by Lord Brougham to his "Discourse on Natural Theology" — a volume 
I suppose accessible to almost all students of the science. 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER II 



117 



reader, and for me ; and we cannot but want to discover whether 
we shall yet be, when this brief yet tedious life is done ; and if so, 
whether our present acts and choosings must influence our Hereafter ? 
Science has said nothing to annihilate our interest concerning these 
topics, nor yet to finally decide them. 

For the truth of what is contained in this last paragraph, we may 
cite as witness amongst scientific men, the distinguished President of 
the British Association for 1872. Dr. Carpenter spoke at Brighton in 
these words : — " There is a great deal of what I cannot but regard as 
fallacious and misleading Philosophy — ' oppositions of Science falsely 
so called ' — abroad in the world at the present time. And I hope to 
satisfy you, that those who set up their own conceptions of the Orderly 
Sequence which they discern in the Phenomena of Nature, as fixed 
and determinate Laics, by which those phenomena not only are 
within all Human experience, but always have been, and always must 
be, invariably governed, are really guilty of the Intellectual arrogance 
they condemn in the Systems of the Ancients, and place themselves 
in diametrical antagonism to those real Philosophers, by whose com- 
prehensive grasp and penetrating insight that Order has been so far 
disclosed." And again towards the close of his Address : — " With the 
growth of the Scientific Study of Nature, the conception of its 
Harmony and Unity gained ever-increasing strength. And so among 
the most enlightened of the Greek and Koman Philosophers, we find 
a distinct recognition of the idea of the Unity of the Directing Mind 
from which the Order of Nature proceeds ; for they obviously believed 
that, as our modern Poet has expressed it — 

" All are but parts of one stupendous whole, 
Whose body Nature is, and God the Soul.", 

The Science of Modern times, however, has taken a more special 
direction. Fixing its attention exclusively on the Order of Nature, it 
has separated itself wholly from Theology, whose function it is to- seek 
after its Cause. In this, Science is fully justified, alike by the entire 
independence of its objects, and by the historical fact that it has been 
continually hampered and impeded in its search for the Truth as it is 
in Nature, by the restraints which Theologians have attempted to 
impose upon its inquiries. But when Science, passing beyond its 
own limits, assumes to take the place of Theology, and sets up its 
own conception of the Order of Nature as a sufficient account of its 
Cause, it is invading a province of Thought to which it has no claim, 
and not unreasonably provokes the hostility of those who ought to be 
its best friends." 



118 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



Our next extract is from Sir Benjamin Brodie, and it, too, 'con- 
siders the absolute permanence of the laws of Nature in relation to 
Design : — 

Crites. " There have been sceptics who have believed that the 
laws of nature were, if I may use the expression, self-existent ; and 
that what we now see around us is but a continuation of a system that 
has been going on from all eternity — thus dispensing with the notion 
of a great creative Intelligence altogether." 

Eubulus. " Under any view of the subject, it seems to me that it 
would be very difficult, if not impossible, for any of us practically to 
separate the marks of design, and of the adaptation of means to ends, 
which the universe affords, but which are more especially conspicuous 
in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, from the notion of an intelli- 
gent Cause. There is not one of the sceptics to whom you have 
alluded, who would not, if he were asked the question, " What is the 
use of the eye ? " answer, " that it is intended to be the organ of vision, 
as the ear is intended to be that of hearing, and as the nostrils are 
constructed for the purpose of smell." But what I said just now 
requires some further explanation. When I stated that at the present 
time there is no evidence of any deviation from certain established 
laws of nature — that if we could thoroughly know and thoroughly 
appreciate what those laws really are, we should be able to account 
for all the phenomena around us — I was far from intending to say 
that there has never been a period when other laws than those which 
are now in force were in operation, or that the time may not arrive 
when the present order of things will be in a similar manner super- 
seded. Looking at the structure of the globe, and the changes in its 
surface which have been disclosed to the observation of geologists, we 
recognize the probability that there was a time when this planet of 
ours was no better than a huge aerolite, and in a state quite incom- 
patible with animal or even vegetable life. The existence of living 
beings, then, must have had a beginning ; yet we have no evidence of 
any law now in force which will account for this marvellous creation." * 
Psychological Inquiries, Part II., pp. 193-4-5. 

* The word Creation must here be construed strictly, so as to signify a true 
Beginning ; — the idea that is of a law-governed materies mundi, a substantial force, 
and movement evoked into primary Existence. 

The prospect of final change yet to be, is thus similarly connected by a living 
philosopher (Helniholtz) with the history of our world's Past : — 

"We estimate the duration of human History at 6,000 years ; but immeasurable 
as this time may appear to us, what is it in comparison with the time during 
which the earth carried successive series of rank plants and mighty animals, and 
no men ; during which in our neighbourhood the amber-tree bloomed, and dropped 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER II 119 



Tlie great surgeon next discusses the question of "Equivocal 
Generation " now known by the terms Archebiosis and Abiogenesis. 
His opinion, together with some later information on the topic, will be 
found in our additional notes to Chapter III. 

When writing his first series of " Inquiries " Sir Benjamin recorded 
his judgment regarding our knowledge arid conception of the Divine 
Existence and in terms which show how closely he connected the 
general subject of Mind and its Essence with his idea of the Creator. 

Eubulus. "When I contemplate the evidence of intention and 
design which present themselves everywhere around us, but which, 
to our limited comprehensions, is more especially manifested in the 
vegetable and animal creations, I cannot avoid attributing the con- 
struction and order of the universe to an intelligent being, whose 
power and knowledge are such that it is impossible for me to form 
any adequate conception of them, any more than I can avoid referring 
the motions of the planets and stars to the same law of gravitation as 
that which directs the motions of our own globe. But no one, I 

its costly gum on the earth and in the sea ; when in Siberia, Europe, and North 
America groves of tropical palms nourished ; where gigantic lizards, and after them 
elephants, whose mighty remains we still find buried in the earth, found a home ? 
Different geologists, proceeding from different premises, have sought to estimate 
the duration of the above-named creative period, and vary from a million to nine 

million years. The time during which the earth generated organic beings is 

again small when compared with the ages during which the world was a ball of fused 
rocks. For the duration of its cooling from 2,000° to 200° Centigrade the experi- 
ments of Bishop upon basalt show that about 350 millions of years would be neces- 
sary. And with regard to the time during which the first nebulous mass con- 
densed into our planetary system, our most daring conjectures must cease. The 

history of man, therefore, is but a short ripple in the ocean of time. For a much 

longer series of years than that during which he has already occupied this world, 
the existence of the present state of inorganic nature favourable to the duration of 
man seems to be secured, so that for ourselves and for long generations after us 
we have nothing to fear. But the same forces of air and water, and of the 
volcanic interior, which produced former geological revolutions, and buried one 
series of living forms after another, act still upon the earth's crust. They more 
probably will bring about the last day of the human race than those distant 
cosmical alterations of which we have spoken, forcing us perhaps to make way for 
new and more complete living forms, as the lizards and the mammoth have given 
place to us and our fellow-creatures which now exist. 

" Thus the thread which was spun in darkness by those who sought a perpetual 
motion has conducted us to a universal law of nature, which radiates light into the 
distant nights of the beginning and of the end of the history of the universe. To 
our own race it permits a long but not an endless existence ; it threatens it with 
a day of judgment, the dawn of which is still happily obscured. As each of us 
singly must endure the thought of his death, the race must endure the same. 
But above the forms of life gone by, the human race has higher moral pi'oblems 



120 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



apprehend, will maintain that the mind of the Deity depends on a 
certain construction of brain and nerves ; and Dr. Priestley, the most 
philosophical of the advocates of the system of materialism, ventures 
no further than to say that we have no knowledge on the subject. 
But, to use the words of Sir Isaac Newton, 'This powerful ever-living 
agent being in all places, is more able to move the bodies within his 
boundless uniform sensorium, and thereby to form and reform the 
parts of the universe, than we are, by our will, to move the parts of our 
own bodies.' The remainder of the passage from which I have made 
this quotation, is not without interest, as indicating the view which 
Newton took of the matter in question : — ' And yet we are not to 
consider the world as the body of God, or the several parts thereof 
as the parts of God. He is an uniform being, void of organs, 
members, or parts, and they are his creatures, subordinate to him, 
and subservient to him, and he is no more the soul of them than the 
soul of man is the soul of the species carried through the organs of 
sense into the place of its sensation, where it perceives them by its 

before it, the bearer of which it is, and in the completion of which it fulfils its 
destiny." Helmholtz, Popular Lectures on Scientific Subjects, p. 191, seq. 

The distinguished German had just before observed, " Even though the force 
store of our planetary system is so immensely great .... still the inexo- 
rable laws of mechanics indicate that this store of force, which can only suffer loss 
and not gain, must be finally exhausted." On the subject of such vast cosmical 
changes, the reader may like to peruse the remarks of Littre in his most recent 
volume — "Les choses, ou, pour mieux dire, nos choses sont d'hier, dut cet hier 
comporter de prodigieuses durees. 

' ' Cette nouveaute" est un te"moignage que notre monde, notre univers, auront 
une fin. Ce qui a commence doit finir, la raison le dit, et toutes nos connaissances 
physiques le confirment. Le soleil et les etoiles se refroidissent incessamment, 
versant dans les espaces une chaleur qui ne leur revient jamais. Quelque chauds 
qu'ils soient, ils le sont chaque jour un peu moins, le calorique s'y epuisera; ils 
s'eteindront, comme ddja leurs planetes se sont ^teintes. Que deviendront ces 
masses animees d'un mouvement rapide ? Nul ne peut le dire. Mais il suffirait 
d'un choc entre elles pour y transformer un prodigieux mouvement en une pro- 
digieuse incandescence, et y renouveler un cycle de chaleur et d'expansion. 

' ' Ce serait se perdre en vaines et gratuites hypotheses, que de speculer sur ce 
que deviendra notre univers quand il aura pris fin, comme de speculer sur ce qu'il 
fut avant qu'il eut pris commencement." Littre, La Science, pp. 560, 1. 

There are thinkers who believe that these cycles, immeasurable to Man, took 
their governing laws from a supreme Designer. They will be aided by Helmholtz 
and Littre in shaping their ideas of His far-reaching wisdom and power. There 
are also thinkers who find within their own inward Being a consciousness of kinship 
with the Source of Causation, so infinitely beyond cycles apparently infinite. How 
great then the value of human Spirits bearing His likeness, and with it a promise of 
surviving the period when our Avorld's cycles shall vanish away in Space — to be 
replaced by other hereditary cycles, or to be remembered no more for ever ! 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER II. 121 



immediate presence, without the intervention of any third thing. The 
organs of sense are -not for enabling the soul to perceive the species 
of things in its sensorium, but only for conveying them thither ; and 
God has no need of any such organs, he being everywhere present to 
the things themselves.' " 

Ergates. " I entirely agree with you in the opinion that we 
must admit the existence of the Deity as a fact as well established 
as that of the law of gravitation, and that in doing so we must 
further admit that mind may and does exist, independently of bodily 
organization. Be it also remembered that mind, in its humblest 
form, is still mind, and that, immeasurable as the distance between 
them may be, it must nevertheless be regarded as being of the same 
essence with that of the Deity himself. For my own part I find 
no difficulty in conceiving the existence of mind independently of 
corporeal organs," (p. 39, seq.) 

Those who have read Professor Huxley's article on the Metaphysics 
of Sensation,* will feel much interested in the passages selected 
from Newton by Sir Benjamin. It seems almost a pity that the 
accomplished Professor did not cite any of Dr. Clarke's explanatory 
remarks addressed to Leibniz respecting Sir Isaac Newton's expres- 
sions. The similitude above quoted, Clarke explains thus: — "Mr. 
Newton considere le cerveau et les organes des sens, comme le 
moyen par lequel ces images sont Formees et non comme le moyen 
par lequel l'ame voit ou apercoit ces images, lorsqu'elles sont ainsi 
formees. Et dans l'Univers, il ne considere pas les choses, comme 
si elles etaient des images formees par un certain moyen ou par des 
organes ; mais comme des choses reelles, que Dieu lui-meme. a 
formees, et qu'il voit dans tous les lieux ou elles sont, sans l'inter- 
vention d'aucun moyen. C'est tout ce que Mr. Newton a voulu dire 
par la comparaison, dont il s'est servi, lorsqu'il suppose que l'Espace 
infini est, pour ainsi dire, le Sensorium de l'Etre qui est present 
partout.' ; 

A simpler way of putting the case may be to point out that the 
comparison of a Sensorium is intended, like other similitudes we 
have reviewed, to hold in only one point. Newton uses it apparently 
to localize the idea of immediate intuition. In this way all Space, 

* This article has been lately reprinted in a volume of " Critiques and 
Addresses," and Leibniz's censure of Newton will be found on p. 323. It maybe 
convenient for some readers to be informed that the Correspondence between 
Clarke and Leibniz to which I have referred will be found at the end of Erdmann's 
Opera Leibnitii (Berlin, 1840), a portable and useful Edition. The sentences 
quoted by me are on page 747. 



122 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



the whole Universe, with its moving contents, which transcend the 
farthest flight of human imagination are, — not distantly, — but imme- 
diately present to the mind of God. 

Passing from these thoughts which may illustrate, but cannot 
explain, a subject dark with excess of splendour, we now enter on a 
series of extracts so chosen as to furnish an ample examination of 
the several ideas involved in the philosophy of Design, and an esti- 
mate of their several values. It is evidently important that the 
reader should possess some means of forming clear conceptions 
respecting the nature of these ideas, and the collection now appended, 
aims at saving him the trouble of a tedious search. Any points 
which may have appeared perplexing or obscure in the preceding 
Chapter will, it is hoped, be made sufficiently plain by a perusal of 
the following pages. 

The first in this class of passages is taken from Whewell's Philo- 
sophy of the Inductive Sciences. No one probably was ever much 
better fitted by training and attainment than that eminent writer for 
the investigation he here untertakes. We must, however, caution 
the reader against supposing that Dr. Whewell means to introduce 
him into a world of Platonism. The ideas he speaks of may be 
illustrated in this way. Suppose a person constructs a right line 
according to Euclid's definition and draws it evenly between its 
extreme points, his mind has immediately an impression of rightness 
or straightness, which he attaches to all lines actually so constructed 
or conceived of as theoretically possible. This idea of straightness 
is absolute and universal. So, again, looking at two such lines, he 
knows that they, cannot, in the nature of things inclose a space, and 
this idea likewise is universal and absolutely true. 

With the nature of these ideas as a psychological question, the 
reader need not concern himself for our present purpose. It is 
sufficient to observe they are brought into activity by a practical 
occasion. Whether they were wholly or partially pre-existent — or 
whether they represent a state of our Eeason evoked by the occasion 
— are points which make no difference to their exact strength of 
validity. We find as a matter of fact in going through life that this 
particular class of ideas is so very true that it enables us to gauge the 
material universe. Yet notably enough, Hume in his Treatise (I. 
247, seq.) reduces applied mathematics to a species of probability. 

Other ideas having various degrees of validity and practical neces- 
sity are involved in the diverse processes which pertain to the 
inductive sciences. Dr. Whewell's work was written for the purpose 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER II. 123 



of elucidating them, which he does at great length. To some such 
ideas, principles, and beliefs we shall advert by and bye. 

All that seems now necessary is to remark that the distinguished 
author's general division (Book IX.) where our extract will be found, 
is concerned with the Philosophy of Biology, and that the paragraphs 
quoted are sections of its chapter VI., " On the Idea of Final Causes." 

"1. By an examination of those notions which enter into all our 
reasonings and judgments on living things, it appears that we conceive 
animal life as a vortex or cycle of moving matter in which the form 
of the vortex determines the motions, and these motions again support 
the form of the vortex: the stationary parts circulate the fluids; and 
the fluids nourish the permanent parts. Each portion ministers to 
the others, each depends upon the other. The parts make up the 
whole, but the existence of the whole is essential to the preservation 
of the parts. But parts existing under such conditions are organs, 
and the whole is organized. This is the fundamental conception of 
organization. 1 Organized beings,' says the physiologist," ' are com- 
posed of a number of essential and mutually dependent parts.' — 
1 An organized product of nature,' says the great metaphysician, f 
1 is that in which all the parts are mutually ends and means.' 

" 2. It will be observed that we do not content ourselves with 
saying that in such a whole, all the parts are mutually dependent. 
This might be true even of a mechanical structure ; it would be 
easy to imagine a framework in which each part should be neces- 
sary to the support of each of the others ; for example, an arch of 
several stones. But in such a structure the parts have no properties 
which they derive from the whole. They are beams or stones when 
separate; they are no more when joined. But the same is not the 
case in an organized whole. The limb of an animal separated from 
the body, loses the properties of a limb and soon ceases to retain 
even its form. 

" 3. Nor do we content ourselves with saying that the parts are 
mutually causes and effects. This is the case in machinery. In a 
clock, the pendulum by means of the escapement causes the descent 
of the weight, the weight by the same escapement keeps up the 
motion of the pendulum. But things of this kind may happen by 
accident. Stones slide from a rock down the side of a hill and cause 
it to be smooth ; the smoothness of the slope causes stones still to 
slide. Yet no one would call such a slide an organized system. 
The system is organized, when the effects which take place among 
the parts are essential to our conception of the whole ; when the whole 

* J. Miiller. f Kant. 



124 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



would not be a whole, nor the parts, parts, except these effects were 
produced ; when the effects not only happen in fact, but are included 
in the idea of the object ; when they are not only seen, but fore- 
seen ; not only expected, but intended : in short when, instead of 
being causes and effects, they are ends and. means, as they are termed 
in the above definition. 

" Thus we necessarily include, in our idea of Organization, the 
notion of an End, a Purpose, a Design ; or, to use another phrase 
which has been peculiarly appropriated in this case, a Final Cause. 
This idea of a Final Cause is an essential condition in order to the 
pursuing our researches respecting organized bodies 

"5. This has already been confirmed by reference to fact ; in the 
History of Physiology, I have shown that those who studied the 
structure of animals were irresistibly led to the conviction that the 
parts of this structure have each its end or purpose ; — that each 
member and organ not merely produces a certain effect or answers a 
certain use, but is so framed as to impress us with the persuasion that 
it was constructed for that use ; — that it was intended to produce the 
effect. It was there seen that this persuasion was repeatedly ex- 
pressed in the most emphatic manner by Galen ; — that it directed the 
researches and led to the discoveries of Harvey ; — that it has always 
been dwelt upon as a favourite contemplation, and followed as a cer- 
tain guide, by the best anatomists; — and that it is inculcated by the 
physiologists of the profoundest views and most extensive knowledge 
of our own time. All these persons have deemed it a most certain 
and important principle of physiology, that in every organized struc- 
ture, plant or animal, each intelligible part has its allotted office : — 
each organ is designed for its appropriate function : — that nature, in 
these cases, produces nothing in vain : that, in short, each portion of 
the whole arrangement has its final cause; an end to which it is 
adapted, and in this end, the reason- that it is where and what it is. 

" 6. This Notion of Design in organized bodies must, I say, be 
supplied by the student of organization out of his own mind : a truth 
which will become clearer if we attend to the most conspicuous and 
acknowledged instances of design. The structure of the eye, in which 
the parts are curiously adjusted so as to produce a distinct image on 
the retina, as in an optical instrument ; — the trochlear muscle of the 
eye, in which the tendon passes round a support and turns back, like 
a rope round a pulley ; — the prospective contrivances for the preser- 
vation of animals, provided long before they are wanted, as the milk 
of the mother, the teeth of the child, the eyes and the lungs of the 
foetus : — these arrangements, and innumerable others, call up in us a 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER II. 125 



persuasion that Design has entered into the plan of animal form and 
progress. And if we bring in our minds this conception of Design, 
nothing can more fully square with and fit it, than such instances as 
these. But if we did not already possess the Idea of Design ; — if we 
had not had our notion of mechanical contrivance awakened by inspec- 
tion of optical instruments, or pulleys, or in some other way ; — if we 
had never been conscious ourselves of providing for the future ; — if 
this were the case, we could not recognize contrivance and prospec- 
tiveness in such instances as we have referred to. The facts are, 
indeed, admirably in accordance with these conceptions, when the 
two are brought together : but the facts and the conceptions come 
together from different quarters — from without and from within. 

" 7. We may further illustrate this point by referring to the 
relations of travellers who tell us that when consummate examples of 
human mechanical contrivance have been set before savages, they 
have appeared incapable of apprehending them as proofs of design. 
This shows that in such cases the Idea of Design had not been 
developed in the minds of the people who were thus unintelligent : 
but it no more proves that such an idea does not naturally and 
necessarily arise, in the progress of men's minds, than the confused 
manner in which the same savages apprehend the relations of space, 
or number, or cause, proves that these ideas do not naturally belong 
to their intellects. All men have these ideas ; and it is because they 
cannot help referring their sensations to such ideas, that they appre- 
hend the world as existing in time and space, and as a series of causes 
and effects. It would be very erroneous to say that the belief of 
such truths is obtained by logical reasoning from facts. And in like 
manner we cannot logically deduce design from the contemplation of 
organic structures ; although it is impossible for us," when the facts 
are clearly before us, not to find a reference to design operating in 
our minds." 

It seems well to add here the practical comments made by Muller 
and Kant on the passages quoted from them by Dr. Whewell in his 
first Paragraph. Professor Muller writes thus (Baly's translation, 
Vol. I., p. 19) : — " The manner in which their elements are combined, 
is not the only difference between organic and inorganic bodies ; there 
is in living organic matter a principle constantly in action, the opera- 
tions of which are in accordance with a rational plan, so that the 
individual parts which it creates in the body, are adapted to the 
design of the whole ; and this it is which distinguishes organism. 
Kant says, ' The cause of the particular mode of existence of each 
part of a living body resides in the whole, while in dead masses each 



126 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



part contains this cause within itself.' This explains why a mere 
part separated from an organized whole generally does not continue 
to live ; why, in fact, an organized body appears to be one and 
indivisible." 

Before proceeding to the great Metaphysician, it may be interesting 
to place in connection with this extract from Miiller, certain views 
of other distinguished physiologists. Sir C. Bell states his own 
opinions on the connection of Life and Organization in this manner 
(Appendix to Paley's Natural Theology by Sir Charles Bell, "com- 
mencing with pp. 211-13) : — " Archdeacon Paley has, in these two 
introductory chapters, given us the advantage of simple, but forcible 
language, with extreme ingenuity, in illustration. But for his ex- 
ample, we should have felt some hesitation in making so close a 
comparison between design, as exhibited by the Creator in the animal 
structure, and the mere mechanism, the operose and imperfect con- 
trivances of human art. 

" Certainly, there may be a comparison; for a superficial and 
rapid survey of the animal body may convey the notion of an 
apparatus of levers, pulleys, and ropes — which maybe compared with 
the spring, barrel, and fusee, the wheels and pinions, of a watch. 
But if we study the texture of animal bodies more curiously, and 
especially if we compare animals with each other — for example, the 
simple structure of the lower creatures with the complicated structure 
of those higher in the scale of existence — we shall see, that in the 
lowest links of the chain animals are so simple, that we should almost 
call them homogeneous ; and yet in these we find life, sensibility, 
and motion. It is in the animals higher in the scale that we discover 
parts having distinct endowments, and exhibiting complex mechanical 
relations. The mechanical contrivances which are so obvious in man, 
for instance, are the provisions for the agency and dominion of an 
intellectual power over the materials around him. 

"We mark this early, because there are authors who, looking upon 
this complexity of mechanism, confound it with the presence of life 
itself, and think it a necessary adjunct — nay, even that life proceeds 
from it : whereas the mechanism which we have to examine in the 
animal body is formed with reference to the necessity of acting upon 
or receiving impressions from, things external to the body — a 
necessary condition of our state of existence in a material world. 

" Many have expressed their opinion very boldly on the necessary 
relation between organization and life, who have never extended 
their views to the system of nature. To place man, an intelligent 
and active being, in this world of matter, he must have properties 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER II. 127, 



bearing relation to that matter. The existence of matter implies an 
agency of certain forces ; — the particles of bodies must suffer attrac- 
tion and repulsion ; and the bodies formed by the balance of these 
influences upon their atoms or particles must have weight or gravity, 
and possess mechanical properties. So must the living body, inde- 
pendently of its peculiar endowments, have similar composition and 
qualities, and have certain relations to the solids, fluids, gases, heat, 
light, electricity, or galvanism, which are around it. Without these, 
the intellectual principle could receive no impulse — could have no 
agency and no relation to the material world. The whole body must 
gravitate or have weight ; without which it could neither stand 
securely, nor exert its powers on the bodies around it. But for this, 
muscular power itself, and all the appliances which are related to that 
power, would be useless. When, therefore, it is affirmed that 
organization or construction is necessary to life, we may at least 
pause in giving assent, under the certainty that we see another and a 
different reason for the construction of the body. Thus we perceive, 
that as the body must have weight to have power, so must it have 
mechanical contrivance, or arrangement of its parts. As it must have 
weight, so must it be sustained by a skeleton ; and when we examine 
the bones, which give the body height and shape, we find each 
column (for in that sense a bone may be first taken) adjusted with 
the finest attention to the perpendicular weight that it has to bear, as 
well as to the lateral thrusts to which it is subject in the motions of 
the body." .... Again p. 405, seq. 

. . " Mr. Hunter illustrated the subject thus : — Death is 
apparent or real. A man dragged out of the water, and to appearance 
dead, is, notwithstanding, alive, according to the definition we have 
given. The living endowments of the individual parts are not ex- 
hausted. The sensibility may be yet roused ; the nerves which 
convey the impression may yet so far retain their property, that other 
motor nerves may be influenced through them ; the muscles may be 
once more concatenated, and drawn into a simultaneous action. That 
vibratory motion which we have just said may be witnessed in a 
muscle recently cut out of the body, may be so excited in a class of 
muscles — for example, in the muscles of inspiration — that the appar- 
ently dead draws an inspiration. Here is the first of a series of vital 
motions which excites the others, and the heart beats, and the blood 
circulates, and the sensibilities are restored ; and the mind, which was 
in the condition of one asleep, is roused into activity and volition, 
and all the common phenomena of life are resuscitated. Such is the 
series of phenomena which is presented in apparent death from suff'o- 



128 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



cation; but, if the death has been from an injury of some vital part, 
the sensibilities and properties of action in the rest of the body, 
though resident for a time, have lost their relations, and there is a 
link wanting in that chain of vital actions which restores animation. 
Here, then, there can be no resuscitation ; and the death of the 
individual parts of the body rapidly succeeds the apparent death of 
the body. 

" We perceive now that our original conception of life and the 
terms we use respecting it, in common parlance, are but ill-adapted 
to this subject when philosophically considered. We early associate 
life and motion so intimately that the one stands for the other. If we 
then investigate by anatomy, we find a curious and minute mechanism 
in operation, an engine and tubes for circulation, and, in short, an 
internal motion of every particle of the frame ; and the anatomist is 
also led into the error of associating in his mind life with motion and 
organization. But when we consider the subject more closely, and 
divest ourselves of habits and prejudices associated with words, we 
perceive that, without making any vain and even dangerous attempt 
at definition, life is first to be contemplated as the peculiarity distin- 
guishing one of two classes into which all matter must be arranged ; 
the one class, which embraces all living matter, is subject to a con- 
trolling influence which resists the chemical agents, and produces a 
series of revolutions, in an order and at periods prescribed ; the other, 
dead matter, is subject to lapse and change under chemical agency 
and the common laws of matter. 

"Let us examine the body of a perfect or a complicated animal. 
We find each organ possessed of a different power. But there is as 
yet no conventional language adapted to our discourse on this subject, 
and that is the source of many mistakes ; for when a man even like 
Mr. Hunter had his mind illuminated upon this science, how was he 
to frame his language, when every word that he used had already a 
meaning which had no reference to the discovery he had made — to 
the distinct qualities which he had ascertained to belong to the living 
parts ? . . . 

" The difference between dead and living matter will appear to be, 
that in the one instance the particles are permanently arranged and 
continue to exhibit their proper character, as we term it, until by 
ingenuity and practice some means are found to withdraw the 
arranging or uniting influence ; and then the matter is chemically 
dissolved : resolves into its elements, and forms new combinations : 
whilst the life continues, not simply to arrange the particles, and to 
give them the order or organization of the animal body, but to whirl 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER II 129 



them in a series of revolutions, during all which the material is 
passive, the law being in the life. The order and succession of these 
changes and their duration do not result from the material of the 
frame, which is the same in all animals, but from that influence 
which we term life, and which is superadded to the material." 
(Ibid. 408.) 

Writing on Function Mr. Herbert Spencer discusses the following 
question. Its interest to our argument is unmistakable. 

"Does Structure originate Function, or does Function originate 
Structure ? is a question about which there has been disagreement. 
Using the word Function in its widest signification, as the totality of 
all vital actions, the question amounts to this — Does Life produce 
Organization, or does Organization produce Life ? 

" To answer this question is not easy, since we habitually find the 
two so associated that neither seems possible without the other ; and 
they appear uniformly to increase and decrease together . . . There 
is, however, one fact implying that Function must be regarded as 
taking precedence of Structure. Of the lowest PJiizopods, which 
present no distinctions of parts, and nevertheless feed and grow and 
move about, Prof. Huxley has remarked that they exhibit Life with- 
out Organization. . . . 

" It may be argued that on the hypothesis of Evolution, Life neces- 
sarily comes before organization. On this hypothesis, organic matter 
in a state of homogeneous aggregation, must precede organic matter 
in a state of heterogeneous aggregation. But since the passing from 
a structureless state to a structured state, is itself a vital process, it 
follows that vital activity must have existed while there was yet no 
structure : structure could not else arise. That function takes prece- 
dence of structure, seems also implied in the definition of Life. If 
Life consists of inner actions so adjusted as to balance outer actions 
— if the actions are the substance of Life, while the adjustment of 
them constitutes its form ; then, may we not say that the actions to 
be formed must come before that which forms them — that the con- 
tinuous change which is the basis of function, must come before the 
structure which brings function into shape? Or again, since through- 
out all phases of Life up to the highest, every advance is the effecting 
of some better adjustment of inner to outer actions ; and since the 
accompanying new complexity of structure is simply a means of 
making possible this better adjustment ; it follows that function is 
from beginning to end the determining cause of structure." — Principles 
of Biology, by Mr. Herbert Spencer, p. 153, seq. 

We now return to Kant, from whom Dr. Whewell quoted the sen- 

9 



130 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



tence — "An organized product of nature is that in which all the 
parts are mutually ends and means." Passing by a metaphysical 
paragraph expressed in a manner too technical for the general reader, 
Kant's practical comment on this sentence runs as follows : — 

" Dass die Zergliederer der Gewachse und Thiere, um ihre Structur 
zu erforschen und die Griinde einsehen zu konnen, warum und zu 
welchem Ende solche Theile, warum eine solche Lage und Yerbindung 
der Theile und gerade diese innere Form ihnen gegeben worden, jene 
Maxime : dass nichts in einem solchen Geschopf umsonst sey, als 
unumganglich nothwendig annehmen und sie eben so, als den 
Grundsatz der allgemeinen Naturlehre : dass Nichts von ungefahr 
geschehe, geltend machen, ist bekannt. In der That konnen sie sich 
auch von diesem teleologischen Grundsatze eben so wenig lossagen, 
als dem allgemeinen physischen, weil, so wie bei Yeranlassung des 
letzteren gar keine Erfahrung iiberhaupt, so bei der des ersteren 
Grundsatzes kein Leitfaden fur die Beobachtung einer Art von 
Naturdinge, die wir einmal teleologisch unter dem Begriffe der Natur - 
zwecke gedacht haben, ubrig bleiben wiirde. 

" Denn dieser Begriff fiihrt die Yernunft in eine ganz andere 
Ordnung der Dinge, als die eines blossen Mechanism der Natur, der 
uns hier nicht mehr genug thun will. Eine Idee soil der Moglichkeit 
des Naturproducts zum Grunde liegen. Weil diese aber ein absolute 
Einheit der Yorstellung ist, statt dessen die Materie eine Yielheit der 
Dinge ist, die fur sich keine bestimmte Einheit der Zusammensetzung 
an die Hand geben kann, so muss, wenn jene Einheit der Idee, sogar 
als Bestimmungsgrund a priori eines Naturgesetzes der Causalitat 
einer solchen Form des Zusammengesetzten dienen soil, der Zweck 
der Natur auf ALLES, was in ihrem Producte liegt, erstreckt werden ; 
weil, wenn wir einmal dergleichen Wirkung im Ganzen auf einen 
ubersinnlichen Bestimmungsgrund liber den blinden Mechanism der 
Natur hinaus beziehen, wir sie auch ganz nach diesem Princip 
beurtheilen niussen und kein Grand da ist, die Form eines solchen 
Dinges noch zum Theil vom letzteren als abhangig anzunehmen, da 
alsdann bei der Yermischung ungleichartiger Principien, gar keine 
sichere Kegel der Beurtheilung iibrig bleiben wiirde." Kritik der 
U) Iheilskraft, Section 65. 

For the benefit of those who find Kant's German difficult we 
subjoin a neat French Translation from the pen of M. Barni. 

" On sait que ceux qui dissequent les plantes et les animaux pour 
en etudier la structure, et pouvoir reconnaitre pourquoi et a quelle 
fin telles parties leur ont ete donnees, pourquoi telle disposition et 
tel arrangement des parties, et precisement cette forme interieure, 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER II. 



131 



adraettent comme indispensablement necessaire cette maxime que rien 
n'existe en vain dans ces creatures, et lui accordent une valeur egale 
a celle de ce principe de la physique generale, que rien n 'arrive par 
hasard. Et en effet ils ne peuvent pas plus rejeter ce principe teleo- 
logique que le principe universel de la physique ; car, de meme 
qu'en l'absence de ce dernier il n'y aurait plus d'experience possible 
en general, de meme, sans le premier, il n ; y aurait plus de fil con- 
ducteur pour l'observation d'une espece de choses de la nature, que 
nous avons une fois concues teleologiquement sous le concept des 
fins de la nature. 

"En effet ce concept introduit la raison dans un tout autre ordre 
de choses que celui du pur mecanisme de la nature, qui ne peut plus 
ici nous satisfaire. II faut qu'une idee serve de, principe a la possi- 
bility de la production de la nature. Mais comme une idee est une 
unite absolue de representation, tandis que la matiere est une pluralite 
de choses qui par elle-meme ne peut fournir aucune unite determinee 
de composition, si cette unite de l'idee doit servir, comme principe a 
priori, a determiner une loi naturelle a la production d'une forme de 
ce genre, il faut que la fin de la nature s'etende d tout ce qui est 
contenu dans sa production. En effet, des que pour expliquer un 
certain effet, nous cherchons, au-dessus de l'aveugle mecanisme de la 
nature, un principe supra-sensible et que nous l'y rapportons en general, 
nous devons le juger tout entier d'apres ce principe ; et il n'y a pas 
de raison pour regarder la forme de cette chose comme dependant 
encore en partie de Vautre principe, car alors, dans le melange de prin- 
cipes heterogenes, il ne resterait plus de regie sure pour le jugement." 
Critique du Jugement, Section 65. 

Kant is not in any. dress the easiest of thinkers to follow — a result 
possibly consequent upon the resemblance which his- writings bear to 
trains of reasoning as they pass from the lips of one who thinks 
aloud. The following paragraph from another work of Dr. Whewell's 
may be useful to some, minds as a comment upon this portion of 
Kant's teleology. 

" There is yet one other Idea which I shall mention, though it is 
one about which difficulties have been raised, since the consideration 
of such difficulties may be instructive : the Idea of a purpose, or as 
it is often termed, a Final Cause, in organized bodies. It has been 
held, and rightly, that the assumption of a Final Cause of each part 
of animals and plants is as inevitable as the assumption of an efficient 
cause of every event. The maxim, that in organized bodies nothing 
is in vain, is as necessarily true as the maxim that nothing happens 
by chance. I have elsewhere shown fully that this Idea is not 



132 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



deduced from any special facts, but is assumed as a law governing 
all facts in organic nature, directing the researches and interpreting 
the observations of physiologists. I have also remarked that it is 
not at variance with that other law, that plants and that animals are 
constructed* upon general plans, of which plans, it may be, we do 
not see the necessity, though we see how wide is their generality. 
This Idea of a purpose,— of a Final Cause, — then, thus supplied by 
our minds, is found to be applicable throughout the organic world. 
It is in virtue of this Idea that we conceive animals and plants as 
subject to disease ; for disease takes place when the parts do not fully 
answer their purpose ; when they do not do what they ought to do. 
How is it then that we thus find an Idea which is supplied by our 
own minds, but which is exemplified in every part of the organic 
world ? Here perhaps the answer will be readily allowed. It is 
because this Idea is an Idea of the Divine Mind. There is a Final 
Cause in the constitution of these parts of the universe, and therefore 
we can interpret them by means of the Idea of Final Cause. We 
can see a purpose, because there is a purpose. Is it too presumptuous 
to suppose that we can thus enter into the Ends and Purposes of the 
Divine Mind? We willingly grant and declare that it would be 
presumptuous to suppose that we can enter into them to any but 
a very small degree. They doubtless go immeasurably beyond our 
mode of understanding or conceiving them. But to a certain extent 
we can go. We can go so far as to see that they are Ends and 
Purposes. It is not a vain presumption in us to suppose that we 
know that the eye was made for seeing and the ear for hearing. In 
this the most pious of men see nothing impious : the most cautious 
philosophers see nothing rash. And that we can see thus far into the 
designs of the Divine Mind, arises, we hold, from this : — that we 
have an Idea of Design and of Purpose which, so far as it is merely 
that, is true ; and so far, is Design and Purpose in the same sense in 
the one case and in the other."* 

It will be well worth while to close this present series of illustra- 
tions by a review of Professor Huxley's last published and best 
considered positions on Teleology. He printed, in 1871, an article on 
Haeckel's " Natiirliche Schopfungs Geschichte," and has now entitled 
it " The Genealogy of Animals," and included it in his recent volume 
of Critiques. We may therefore assume that we here find the dis- 
tinguished Biologist's deliberate opinions. He says, p. 305, " The 



* Philosophy of Discovery, Chap. XXX. 23, pp. 369-70. 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER II. 



133 



Teleology which supposes that the eye, such as we see it in man or 
one of the higher Vertebrata * was made with the precise structure 
which it exhibits, for the purpose of enabling the . animal which 
possesses it to see, has undoubtedly received its death-blow. Never- 
theless it is necessary to remember that there is a wider Teleology, 
which is not touched, by the doctrine of Evolution, but is actually 
based upon the fundamental proposition of Evolution. That propo- 
sition is, that the whole world, living and not living, is the result of 
the mutual interaction, according to definite laws, of the forces 
possessed by the molecules of which the primitive nebulosity of the 
universe was composed. If this be. true, it is no less certain that the 
existing world lay, potentially, in the cosmic vapour ; and that a 
sufficient intelligence, could, from a knowledge of the properties of the 
molecules of that vapour, have predicted, say the state of the Fauna 
of Britain in 1869, with as much certainty as one can say what will 
happen to the vapour- of the breath on a cold winter's day. 

" Consider a kitchen clock, which ticks loudly, shows the hours, 
minutes, and seconds, strikes, cries ' cuckoo ! ' and perhaps shows 
the phases of the moon. When the clock is wound up, all the 
phenomena which it exhibits are potentially contained in.its mechan- 
ism, and a clever clockmaker could predict alLit will do after an 
examination of its structure. 

"If the evolution theory is correct, the molecular structure of the 
cosmic gas stands in the same relation to the phenomena of the world 
as the structure of the clock to its phenomena." 

Mr. Huxley's comparisons f are always amusing, partly because 
they are of an unlooked for description. They also keep up the 
attention of his readers or hearers. But they have one great fault — 
the fault we noticed in explaining the nature of analogical argument — 
they carry away the mind too far, and lead the reader often, some- 
times the writer himself, into very serious oversights. Let us take 
notice how the Professor carries out his present similitude. "Now 
let us suppose a death-watch, living in the clock-case, to be a learned 
and intelligent student of its works. He might say, 1 1 find here 
nothing but matter and force and pure mechanism from beginning to 
end,' and he would be quite right. But if he drew the conclusion 
that the clock was. not contrived for a purpose, he would be quite 
wrong. On the other hand, imagine another death-watch of a 
different turn of mind. He, listening to the monotonous ' tick ! tick ! ' 

* It is necessary to observe the Professor's limitations. 

f They have been noted before. In this place it is necessary to examine the 
following instances. 



134 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



so exactly like his own, might arrive at the conclusion that the clock 
was itself a monstrous sort of death-watch, and that its final cause 
and purpose was to tick. How easy to point to the clear relation of 
the whole mechanism to the pendulum, to the fact that the one thing 
the clock did always and without intermission was to tick, and that all 
the rest of its phenomena were intermittent and subordinate to 
ticking ! For all this, it is certain that kitchen clocks are not con- 
trived for the purpose of making a ticking noise. 

" Thus the teleological theorist would be as wrong as the mechan- 
ical theorist, among our death-watches; and, probably, the only 
death-watch who would be right would be the one who should main- 
tain that the sole thing death-watches could be sure about was the 
nature of the clock-works and the way they move ; and that the 
purpose of the clock lay wholly beyond the purview of beetle 
faculties. 

"Substitute 'cosmic vapour' for 'clock,' and 'molecules' for 
' works,' and the application of the argument is obvious." (pp. 306, 7.) 

One thing is very obvious here — and that is a flaw. State the case 
as a proposition thus — One or both of the two beetles is to the clock 
and its maker, as man is to the world and its Maker. A tremendous 
assumption — surely as sufficient to have startled Francis Bacon as the 
apparition of a new Idol. Is there any possible reason for elevating 
a death-watch — thinking in character as a death-watch — into a 
capable interpreter of clocks ? Moreover, the ground principle of our 
human Teleology is that Man holds a lofty relation, not to the Universe 
only, but to its Maker likewise. He claims, in a word, the most 
sublime of all earthly kinships. The very fact that he can look with 
ntelli^ent and admiring appreciation upon the works of Grod, justifies 
his belief that he has a real insight into their excellence, and is so 
far at least akin to the mind of God. If Mr. Huxley meant that a 
proportionate degree of insight into clock-making was possessed by 
his beetles, they would surely have been able to read the clock's dial- 
plate and understand the lesson conveyed by its pointers. The 
death-watch would at least say " labuntur fiora" — and comprehend 
that time was being registered — although he might even then fall far 
short of our human belief " pereunt et imputantur ," and fail of 
knowing that time registers itself in a record of moral good and evil. 

The truth is that all mixing up manlike attributes with brute 
animality, and what seems ten times worse, with machines of wood 
and metal, can be nothing better than an attempt to produce a sound 
and prolific offspring from some ill-assorted and heterogeneous 
hybridism. 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER II. 



135 



We have adverted to this peculiarity of style before and venture 
upon doing so again, because all admirers of Mr. Huxley's great 
powers (and who can read his writings without such admiration ?) 
may surely be justified in wishing that he would discard it at once 
and for ever. Its practical effect is apparently to assume the real 
point at issue and to cover up the tacit assumption. That he is 
really no chance offender in this respect may be gathered from a few 
instances noted at random. We have just had a couple of philosophic 
death-watches * — one a Teleologist, the other a Mechanicist — the 
lucubrations of both being neither exactly human, nor yet Coleop- 
terous. We observed before a righteous clock f — regularly moral if 
regularly wound up. He has besides a machine, undescribed but 
endued with a gift of ratiocination J— and more curious still a piano § 
which listens when it is played upon, and though possessed of only 
one sense (hearing) succeeds in building up "endless ideas" of a 
certain cast and cogency. From this self-educated instrument much 
may of course be looked for, and accordingly we find 

' ' Its cogitative faculties immersed 
In cogibunclity of cogitation," 

till it evolves from the depth of its consciousness something like an 
idealistic theory of sound. This hypothesis, Mr. Huxley in reply to 
his piano, refutes, first by an appeal to the material substance of the 
instrument itself ; and secondly to the existence of a musician who 
plays upon it. Will he permit us to accept in like manner the fact 
of our own nobler subsistence, and also the being of One Who attunes 
its secret heartstrings to notes of sublime melody ? 

The monsters aforecited irresistibly remind us of a repartee of 
Goldsmith's. He wittily said that Dr. Johnson would make little 
fishes talk like great whales. Had they done so it may be doubted 
whether the Doctor's idolatrous biographer would have discovered a 
minnowy mind beneath their Johnsonian utterances. And we confess 
to a difficulty of our own. The righteous clock is indeed genuinely 
Huxleian, but what shall we say of his mechanical logic, his piano, 
and his death-watches '? By way of illustrating our perplexity let us 
suppose some rural sexton to mix up his own instincts with those of 
a biological burying beetle. The destiny of all flesh would naturally 
be determined in the first place by a decent covering of earth. But 
what about its final end ? Would that be an aldermanic beetle feast 
or a Resurgam ? 



* Critiques, p. 306. 
t Lay Sermons, p. 373. 



* Critiques, p. 2S1. 
§ Ibid. 349. 



136 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



Think again how a member of the Society for the Prevention of 
Cruelty to Animals might breathe a benevolent spirit into a much 
employed dissecting knife. The sharp thing would certainly entertain 
a repugnance to the horrors of vivisection. There might also be a 
denial of its utility based on the scalpel's personal experience, or 
perhaps a moral doubt as to whether such means are justified by the 
ends proposed. Would Mr. Huxley listen to the remonstrance and 
undertake to lift up his powerful voice at Paris or at Berlin besides a 
few other remote places which need not be particularized ? 

Or finally what ear would he lend to a magnifying glass accustomed 
to habits of observation and possessed by the soul of Spurzheim. 
Suppose it should affirm that a slice of Destructiveness is recognizably 
different in structure from a section of Benevolence ; and Acquisitive- 
ness in like manner distinguishable from Ideality ! Yet a humani- 
tarian scalpel or Spurzheim magnifying glass may be thought a 
Huxleian phenomenon. 

A truce to such mongrel meditations. We gladly turn away from 
them and continue our quotations from the Professor's sentiments 
delivered in propria persona, recommencing at the place where our 
last extract broke off. (p. 307.) 

"The teleological and the mechanical views of nature, are not 
necessarily, mutually exclusive. On the contrary, the more purely 
a mechanist the speculator is, the more firmly does he assume pri- 
mordial molecular arrangement, of which all the phenomena of the 
universe are the consequences ; and the more completely is he thereby 
at the mercy of the teleologist who can always defy him to disprove 
that this primordial molecular arrangement was not intended to 
evolve the phenomena of the universe." 

We quite agree with Mr. Huxley that Mechanism never can exclude 
final causes, and that a thorough-going theory of Evolution (taken 
apart from its excrescences) disables the theorist from all real disproof 
of intention or Design. As we said before, the question of how the 
theorist's primordial arrangement began, is left unprovided for. And 
if a beginning, so certainly an end. The more steadily the first state 
of the Universe conceivable by Science is contemplated, the wider 
and more determinate the view thus taken, the more evident it 
becomes that the ground occupied by Natural Theology is not fenced 
off by the iron pale of Mechanism. The fencer is (as Huxley says) 
" at the mercy of the Teleologist." 

The Professor's next sentence deserves careful consideration—" On 
the other hand, if the teleologists assert that this, that, or the other 
result of the working of any part of the mechanism of the universe is 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER II. 



137 



its purpose and final cause, the mechanist can always inquire how he 
knows that it is more than an unessential incident — the mere ticking 
of the clock, which he mistakes for its function." 

How far this criticism holds good of many well-meant treatises filled 
with special instances of Design is a question for candid considera- 
tion. Meantime the whole sentence amounts to this conclusion : — 
We must distinguish between such wide arguments as Baden Powell's, 
and the details of certain writers who have dealt with what they 
thought good examples and illustrations of a grand universal principle. 
And that such is Mr. Huxley's meaning we, may perceive from 
another paragraph immediately preceding our first extract, (p. 305.) 

"In more than one place, Professor Haeckel enlarges upon the 
service which the Origin of Species has clone, in favouring what he 
terms the ' causal or mechanical ' view of living nature as opposed to 
the ' teleological or vitalistic ' view. And no doubt it is quite true 
that the doctrine of Evolution is the most formidable opponent of all 
the commoner and coarser forms of Teleology. But perhaps the most 
remarkable service to the [philosophy of Biology rendered by Mr. 
Darwin is the reconciliation of Teleology and Morphology, and the 
explanation of the facts of both which his views offer." 

Now, such being the state of facts, we may refuse to say with 
Huxley that the following question (asked p. 307) is "not irrational." 
"Why trouble oneself about matters which are out of reach, when 
the working of the mechanism itself, which is of - infinite practical 
importance, affords scope for all our energies ? " 

We cannot forego our trouble, for two reasons. First, according 
to the statements before quoted, Mr. Darwin's researches have 
improved the case for Teleology. Advocates of Design may therefore 
take courage, they have gained a potent alliance. Secondly, "the 
practical working of the Mechanism itself" is very far, we think, 
from being our All — so far, indeed, that it sinks into insignificance 
compared with the hope of Immortality. Our highest interest lies in 
gathering such information as we can regarding Him with Whom we 
have to do as the Arbiter of our future existence. Above all things, 
we desire Him to be our Father and our Friend. Perchance His 
attributes are not matters out of reach. He may be very near to 
every one of us, if we are indeed His Offspring. 

Another opinion of Professor Huxley's is of great auxiliary value 
to the argument from Design. The structures mentioned have to 
some minds appeared as its most serious difficulties. "Professor 
Haeckel," he explains, "has invented a new and convenient name, 
1 Dysteleology,' for the study of the ' purposelessnesses ' which are 



138 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



observable in living organisms — such as the multitudinous cases of 
rudimentary and apparently useless structures. I confess, however, 
that it has often appeared to me that the facts of Dysteleology cut 
two ways. If we are to assume, as evolutionists in general do, that 
useless organs atrophy, such cases as the existence of lateral rudi- 
ments of toes, in the foot of a horse, place us in a dilemma. For, 
either these rudiments are of no use to the animal, in which case, 
considering that the horse has existed in its present form since the 
Pliocene epoch, they surely ought to have disappeared ; or they are 
of some use to the animal, in which case they are of no use as argu- 
ments against Teleology." (p. 307.) It would be hard to over- 
estimate the value of this opinion, still more hard to overrate its 
genuine and outspoken honesty. 

Mr. Huxley places at the end of his recent volume a passage from 
Bishop Berkeley which we will venture to borrow by way of conclu- 
sion to this lengthy note : — 

" You see, Hylas, the water of yonder fountain, how it is forced 
upwards in a round column to a certain height, at which it breaks 
and falls back into the basin from whence it rose ; its ascent as well 
as its descent proceeding from the same uniform law or principle of 
gravitation. Just so, the same principles which, at first view, lead to 
scepticism, pursued to a certain point, bring men back to common 
sense." 

Adsit omen ! May it be even thus with our large-minded Professor 
and with all other sovereign princes of Biology — "ixews 'AffKXijwlos ! 



CHAPTEE III, 
CONDITIONS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 



" The words which the great German poet pat into the month of Mephis- 
topheles when describing himself to Faust, afford perhaps the most 
concise and forcible statement of what we may call the anti- scientific 
spirit : — 

' Ich bin der Geist der stets verneint, 
Dem alles, was entsteht, zu wider ist.' 

The true spirit of science is certainly affirmative, not negative ; for, 
as I mentioned just now, its history teaches us that the development of 
our knowledge usually takes place through two or more simultaneous 
ideas of the same phenomenon, quite different from one another, both of 
which ultimately prove to be parts of some more general truth ; so that 
a confident belief in one of those ideas does not involve or justify a 
denial of the others." — Address of the President of the British Association, 
1873-4. p. 13. 

" Philosophy is but wise and disciplined thought upon the subjects 
on which all men think. The minds of men, left to their own natural 
working, will never cease to think on these things ; and if Philosophy 
should cease to attempt to think wisely on them, she abandons her 
position as a guide. She has been to blame for the carelessness of her 
procedure, for the overweeningness ,of her pretensions. But the : remedy 
is soberness, not scepticism. Is it, after all, an evil, that in some direc- 
tions we fail to attain certainty by mere thinking 1 . ... As in nature, 
the picture you see is not broad light and dark, but a thousand tender 
tones and hues melting into each other, and vibrating together between 
the light and dark : so is the mind of man." Archbishop of York — on 
The limits of Philosophical Inquiry, pp. 25-26. 

' ' To the knowledge of the most contemptible effect in nature, 'tis neces- 
sary to know the whole Syntax of Causes, and their particular circum- 
stances, and modes of action. Nay, we know nothing, till we know ourselves, 
which are the summary of all the world without us, and the Index of the 
Creation.*' Glanvill, Vanity of Dogmatizing, Chap, xxii Ed. 1. p. 217. 

* ' A branching channel, with a mazy flood ? 

The purple stream that through my vessels glides, 
Dull and unconscious flows, like common tides : 
The pipes through which the circling juices stray, 
Are not that thinking I, no more than they : 
This frame compacted with transcendent skill, 
Of moving joints obedient to my will, 
Nurs'd from the fruitful glebe, like yonder tree, 
Waxes and wastes ; I call it mine, not me." 

Dr. Arbuthnot. 



" ' To the eye of vulgar Logic,' says he, 'what is man ? An omnivorous 
Biped that wears Clothes. To the eye of Pure Reason what is he 1 
A soul, a Spirit, and divine Apparition. Round his mysterious Me, there 
lies, under all those wool-rags, a Garment of Flesh (or of Senses), con- 
textured in the Loom of Heaven ; whereby he is revealed to his like, 
and dwells with them in Union and Division ; and sees and fashions for 
himself a Universe, with azure Starry Spaces, and long Thousands of 
Years. Deep-hidden is he under that strange Garment ; amid Sounds 
and Colours and Forms, as it were, swathed in, and inextricably over- 
shrouded : yet it is skywoven, and worthy of a God. Stands he not 
thereby in the centre of Immensities, in the conflux of Eternities ? He 
feels ; power has been given him to Know, to Believe ; nay does not the 
spirit of Love, free in its celestial primeval brightness, even here, though 
but for moments, look through ? Well said Saint Chrysostom, with his 
lips of gold, "the true Shekinah is Man:" where else is the God's- 
Presence manifested not to our eyes only, but to our hearts, as in our 
fellow man?' " — Sartor Besartus, Chap., x. Pure Reason, 



SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER III. 



This Chapter may be characterized as a parallel between the difficulties 
alleged to be fatal against Theism, and the difficulties attaching to 
very various departments of human knowledge, embracing its most 
necessary and its most certainly accepted kinds. From this parallel 
the conclusion becomes evident, that whoever accepts one set of 
truths cannot be debarred by these or similar difficulties from 
accepting the higher truth likewise. That such an acceptance is 
natural and valid appears further evident from the fact that a 
knowledge of God belongs to the class of Practical beliefs, and is 
enforced by the same reasonable necessity. This topic forms the 
transition to Chapter IY. on " Our Reasonable Beliefs." 

The same inferences are also stated in a destructive form, e.g., Should a 
thinker choose to deny the possibility of Theism, he ought (if con- 
sistent) to deny all those truths which stand or fall by a parallel set 
of reasonings. But by doing this he lands himself in a state of 
doubt, so extreme and thorough, that the whole Universe becomes 
a rayless blank. 

A corollary is added on Materialism. 

Analysis — Man the interpreter of Nature. Nature gives by answering 
our interrogations ; these must depend on our powers of assimilating 
knowledge. Some questions inevitable, e.g., What are the first 
grounds of Truth 1 

Has Man any faculty of apprehending the Infinite ? Can we know our 
own Personality or that of others 1 — or any Thing in itself ? Infer- 
ence against Scepticism based on human ignorance. 

Fallacy of the Unthinkable or Inconceivable. Ideas of Self and not-Self, 
inexplicable, yet undoubted. From things as they are, let us turn 
to things as they appear. How do we perceive, hear, see ? 

Perception as an instrument of Intelligence, inscrutable. We acknow- 
ledge the insoluble mystery but accept the fact. 

Marvels of eyesight, and their problems. How much and what do we 
see ] Comparison with Sound ; — Form, Colour, Tone. Evidence on 
which we receive sense impressions. Comparison between healthy 
and diseased sensations, — between our organs of sense and those of 
animals. We soon arrive at a twilight territory of knowledge and 
can explain no more. 



144 



SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER III. 



Imperfections in our powers of Verification. How great is the subjective 
Element in our perceptions 1 Idealism, — most difficult to answer 
when most extreme. Philosophic denial of all proof of external 
things as distinguished from Mind {e.g., by Mill). Fact-knowledge, 
and absurdities involved in the ordinary method of defining and 
alleging Facts. Polar tendencies of Phenomenalism which take the 
shapes of Idealism and Positivism, resulting in Nihilism or Indif- 
ferentism. The end of these things ! Mr. Herbert Spencer on 
Theology, compared with Mr. Huxley, and criticized by Mr. J. 
Martineau, who denies that the Unknowable can be any object of 
religious feeling, — a protest strongly maintained by Mr. J. S. Mill. 

The difficulties attending every kind of knowledge paralleled with the 
difficulties alleged against Theism. If the. Inexplicable be also the 
Unknowable, there is an end to all knowledge. We cannot predicate 
veracity of our human Mind, we cannot even know that we know 
anything. Mr. J. S. Mill accepts Mind as an inexplicable Fact 
underlying all other Facts and Beliefs. We must accept ultimate 
Truths. 

Transition to Chapter IY. on the affirmativeevidence for our Reasonable 
Beliefs. 

Corollary on Materialism. Far more difficult than its antithesis. Con- 
clusion to be drawn from these difficulties. 

Additional Notes and Illustrations. 

A. — Account of some theories respecting our Personal Identity. 

B. — Helmholtz, Popular Lectures on Recent Progress of the Theory of 

Vision. 

C. — Helmholtz on Specialties of Sensibility. 

D. — Popular account of Pure Idealism with critical remarks. 

E. — On the Relations of Fact and Theory. 

F. — On the " Unknowable." 

G. — Mr. J. S. Mill as an Independent Moralist. 

Additions to Corollary. 

Note H. — Archebiosis, or Spontaneous Generation. 
I. — On Materialism. # 



CHAPTEE III. 



CONDITIONS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 

Is the great Book of Nature — the world we live in — a closed 
or open book to Man ? On this question all have thought 
often, — and many have written much, — students — men of 
science — religious teachers — poets, and philosophers. 

We ask this question of ourselves variously circumstanced, 
and under various impulses. We ask it if, like CEschylus' 
watchman, we contemplate 

" The congress of the nightly stars 
Bright potentates, set proudly in the sky." 

Or when we sail upon a sea made solemn by its vastness, 
dying in far distance, with no boundary except itself, as each 
swelling wave rises against the sky. We ask it, on some 
stately mountain top looking down over light and shadow, — 
over the rest and the motion of the landscape. More earnestly 
still, perhaps, while from the depth of a twilight valley we 
admire the sunset lingering upon inapproachable alpine snows ; 
— rosy heights unveiling their loveliness, yet soon to be hidden 
till the Light of this lower world shall shine afresh amongst 
their clefts and pinnacles. 

And who is not in earnest, as sunset and sunrise remind 
him how the majestic clock of Time moves on ? Yonder 
glorious luminary has warmed with form and life countless 
organisms, scattered over mountain summits, in ocean depths, 
through wild savannahs and forests; — organisms throughout 
regions of earth, water, air, so remote and inaccessible that 

10 



146 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



their wonderful excellence of beauty has never been beheld by 
Man's perishable eye. Knowing, as we cannot but know, how 
soon our own eyelids must close beneath the sun, we yearn 
within our soul, longing for a truer insight into the great 
Universe above and beyond us ; and for a firmer feeling that 
we ourselves are an imperishable part of it. Somewhere in 
this Universe, must surely be . contained things brighter and 
better than those we now possess. Else, why is it clothed so 
lavishly with half-revealed charms, adapted to touch our most 
delicate sympathies, to win us from our worse selves, and 
allure us on like willing captives to its loveliness ? Awakened 
in our senses, awakened in our souls, we desire to know, to 
feel, and to attain ; — these three impulses become our fixed 
and enduring aspirations. 

But, how ? We all remember that Undine sought a soul 
And found a sorrow ; — a sorrow the more intolerable, because 
through its burden she first realized her hard-earned dower of 
coveted immortality. Yet, as she truly says, every creature 
cannot but strive after that which is naturally higher than 
itself. 

One secret of progress we soon discover. What Nature can 
give us depends on what she can tell us. And here is a pre- 
vailing motive for the endeavour to unclose fair Nature's book. 

Another step in thought is early taken in our day, though 
the civilized world was slow in reaching it. We soon perceive 
that Nature's answers must catch their tone and compass 
from our interrogations. In numerous sciences, this axiom 
carries the whole theory and practice of experiment; — that 
grand distinction between Bacon's inductive process, and the 
induction of the ancient world. In other walks of inquiry, 
intellectual and moral, the same truth has grown up and 
blossomed with a ruling idea of the crucial or prerogative 
question: slow in being framed, and difficult often in the 
asking, but, when asked, certain to elicit a reply. 

A third postulate is also quickly apparent. Our inquiries 
must be subject, for utility's sake, to our power of assimilating 
knowledge. And thus our faculty for asking questions is 
governed by our faculties for apprehending answers. 



CONDITIONS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 



147 



The last and paramount requirement is forced upon us. 
Beyond and over all, comes the pressure of our own need and 
private anxiety. There are many truths which we discern 
afar off, like features of a smiling land of promise ; and, 
knowing that they must become one day the heritage of 
mankind, we tend towards them without haste, yet without 
forgetfulness, and in this temper of mind wait contentedly. 
But, there are some truths for which we cannot afford to wait. 
They concern our destinies too closely ; they are too near our 
hearts ; too influential on our lives and happiness. 

The old question asked in the youth of human philosophy, 
is the one we all begin by asking in our first confidence and 
eagerness of pursuit. Ask it in what words we may, it always 
comes to much the same thing; and if we could answer it, 
we should answer all questions in one. For, though we clothe 
our query with various shapes, and seldom put it in the form 
following its true meaning is, " what are the realities of the 
Universe, and what the essential ground of all we see and 
think ? " 

It is always worth a thinker's while to look this human 
problem more than once in the face. Suppose a faculty * for 

* Professor Max Miiller writes as follows. — "If philosophy has to 
explain what is, not what ought to be, there will be and can be no rest 
till we admit, what cannot be denied, that there is in man a (third) 
faculty, which I call simply the faculty of apprehending the Infinite, not 
only in religion, but in all things ; a power independent of sense and 
reason, a power in a certain sense contradicted by sense and reason, but 
yet a very real power, which has held its own from the beginning of the 
world, neither sense nor reason being able to overcome it, while it alone 
is able to overcome both reason and sense." Max Midler's Lectures on 
the Science of Religion. — Lect. I. New Ed. p. 20. The use of the word 
faculty is defended in a note. 

I quote this passage with pleasure, because one main objection brought 
against the possible existence of such a faculty is taken from the negative 
form of the word Infinite. The Professor maintains that, as a question 
of Philology, Infinite signifies an affirmative idea. In his Lectures on 
Language, second series, p. 576. he writes thus. "There is no Infinite, 
we are told, for as there is a Finite, the Infinite has its limit in the 
Finite, it cannot be Infinite. jNow all this is mere playing on words 
without thoughts. Why is infinite a negative idea % Because infinite is 
derived from finite by means of the negative particle in! But this is a 

10 A 



148 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



such insight granted, it must be different in kind, rather than 
degree, from our logic of ordinary life. It cannot proceed 
discursively, abstracting, generalizing, connecting, deducing. 
It must know — or look at its object directly, just as genius 
knows, images and conveys to other minds, not through a 
train of explanatory definition, but by kindling within them 
a spark of its own light. If there be such a faculty, it will 
work, (as Aristotle * says of the Supreme Intellect,) by what 
seems to us most like an act of touch ; a figure half-shadowed 
out when we say we grasp or apprehend a truth ; and much 
as St. Paul speaks, in bidding men to seek and feel after and 
find the Lord. 

We are not all conscious of such a faculty. But if dim to 
some, is it certainly dim to all ? Did Plato see farther than 
Herschel could when he burst the barriers of the sky ? Did 
Schelling at any time behold what Hamilton pronounced 
invisible ? f 

Or again, if not actually ours now, — if those who have 
asserted it have spoken in error, — is there a hope that in the 
Future of Man individual or collective, he will ever grow up 
to it ? The thought is not unknown to physicists as well as 
moralists. In both camps hopeful minds have conceived the 

mere accident, it is a fact in the history of language, and no more. The 
same idea may be expressed by the Perfect, the Eternal, the Self-existing, 
which are positive terms, or contain at least no negative element. That 
negative words may express positive ideas was known perfectly to Greek 
philosophers such as Chrysippus, and they would as little have thought 
of calling immortal a negative idea as they would have considered blind 
positive. The true idea of the Infinite is neither a negation nor a modi- 
fication of any other idea. The Finite, on the contrary, is in reality the 
limitation or modification of the Infinite, nor is it possible, if we reason 
in good earnest, to conceive of the Finite in any other sense than as the 
shadow of the Infinite. Even Language will confess to this, if we cross- 
examine her properly. " He adds a happy quotation from Roger Bacon : 
" ' et dicitur infinitum non per privationem terminorum quantitatis, sed 
per negationem corruptionis et non esse.' Oxford of the nineteenth 
century need not be ashamed, as far as metaphysics are concerned, of 
Oxford of the thirteenth." Coleridge's theory of the Intuitive reason is 
well known to most readers. 
* Metaph. XII. 7. 

t Hamilton's Discussions, vol. 1. Art. 1. 



CONDITIONS OF HU3IAN KNOWLEDGE. 149 

possibility. And, then Mankind will look the secret of the 
Universe face to face. 

Meanwhile, thinking men have laid siege to the absolute 
Truth by aid of such powers as they commonly call into 
action. For centuries past, the nature of things in them- 
selves, — and along with (or perhaps above) all other natures j 
the " Self" within every man has been among the most fas- 
cinating of objects pursued by human thought. Yet, how far 
do we really know the life throbbing in every pulse ? Can 
we tell the secret of our own individuality ? We feel it every 
da}^; — it endues us with a separate existence, distinctly several, 
and apart from others, and so intensely vivid to ourselves, that 
we seem in our own eyes like small centres of the Universe, 
with men and women, — nay, worlds and stars, — revolving 
round us * Yet, strange to say, our bodies are at all times 
undergoing change, sufficient in a few years to eliminate their 
present frame, and remould a future compound of gradually 
assimilated elements. And it seems stranger still, that while 
the law of Change rules supreme in these fabrics, — (built to be 
continually dissolved and continually built again), — each rude 
mark and scar maintains its place ; no old wound forgets to 
ache ; no cicatrice even, nor superficial blemish, dies quite 
away. We are always changing, always being transformed ; 
yet, to each of our bodies continues its one individual configu- 
ration; within each of our minds its self-collection, its memories, 
its expectations, and its individual consciousness, (a) 

* Yery few people have ever sate down and sturdily endeavoured to 
realize before their mind's eye, the distinct idea of any other mind sepa- 
rate from themselves and independently subsistent. A short trial will 
shew the difficulty, perhaps impossibility of the proposed realization. 

Any one who tries and fails, may be glad to learn that eminent meta- 
physicians have retreated in despair from the task of justifying, by argu- 
ment, our belief in any minds other than our own. To common sense, it 
may seem a natural inquiry whether this metaphysical failure holds 
morally, in foro conscientice, as a valid excuse for most men's neglect of 
other men's rights and interests 1 If not, it would appear that morality 
is a more delicate test of certainty, than some sorts of metaphysics. 

(a) For the information of some readers, and the entertainment of 
others, a few of the less popularized theories respecting Self-ness or Per- 
sonal Identity are thrown into Additional Note A. 



150 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



Weighing these inconsistencies together, shall we say that, 
in any proper sense, we know our own selves ? And, if not, 
can we expect truly to know the self of anything ? May we 
not travel further, and inquire whether we can conceive a 
self-ness of any kind, — whether the very idea is not to us 
absolutely inconceivable ? And, when this question is answered 
as it must be answered, need we feel surprised if we fall short 
of conceiving the self-subsistent God ? At what value, there- 
fore, shall we rate sceptical arguments drawn from our failure ; 
and resting on the fallacious consequence, that the inconceivable 
(or unthinkable as some prefer to call it) is likewise the 
impossible ? (b) 

That a fallacy really lurks beneath these words, — that the 
contrary is true, we know as a matter of fact * We entertain 

(b) Nothing is more common in conversation than for a talker to 
affirm that such and such a position must be untrue ' ' because it is 
inconceivable." The assertor ought in return to be asked one or two 
questions, e.g., "Do you mean inconceivable to yourself or to the gene- 
rality of Mankind ?" If the latter, " Is the contradictory also incon- 
ceivable?" Again, " Do you mean by the word inconceivable, unthinkable 
or unimaginable?" Few people clearly consider this last distinction. 
Further, "If unthinkable, is it absolutely so, or only very difficult to 
think?" And it seems likewise important to deliberate whether any 
position ought to be pronounced absolutely unthinkable, unless the 
human mind lies under a stern necessity of thinking and accepting its 
contradictory. 

* "Conceivable" and other like expressions are always relative to 
conceiving minds ; and what appears either conceivable or inconceivable 
to one mind, may be the contrary to another. A painter not only con- 
ceives, — but draws a Centaur, and places him feeding on a wide plain or 
sloping hill side. But, can the Physiologist conceive such a monstrosity ? 
The solution is easy ; the painter thinks of his figure, the physiologist of 
the structure ; and this example furnishes a good caution as to the use 
of similar words. 

From words we may pass to ideas. Take any conception involving 
the condition of Time or Space, — (those two optical tubes of our mind's 
perceiving eye),— and place it before the understanding ; first as a Finite 
and next as an Infinite. The result is a conflict of arguments, ending in 
a contradiction of all possibility that either way the conception can be 
true. Any one moderately acquainted with Kant's best-known work, is 
aware that, by thus treating the world's existence, he raises overwhelm- 
ing difficulties against its being either limited or unlimited in extent ; — 
eternal or having a commencement in duration ; — (p. 338. Ed. Rosenkranz) 



CONDITIONS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 



151 



really no doubt whatever of our own continued sameness, and 
individual existence. We are quite sure that our self-ness has 
gone on throughout the years of our natural life. How it first 
became clear to our inward sense, is a point confessedly dis- 
jDutable. Some suppose that it existed as a principle of con- 
sciousness, — a kind of primordial instinct in our minds. Others 
— that our internal impressions, one and all, formed a panoramic 
scene ; impressions from without and impressions from within 
evenly painted on the retina of the mental eye. Time and 
comparison were needful to give us the true distinction. Those 
who think thus usually take another step ; and add that 
resistance to our self-ness first informs us of its being. There 
is resistance to a muscular sense, somewhat akin to touch, but 
specialized to feel the kind of impact given by things impene- 
trable. There is also a resistance which thwarts our desires, 
endeavours, and determinations. Be this as it may, we never 
doubt our own identity of being; we never doubt the other-ness 
and outer-ness of beings like ourselves, and of objects beyond 
number. Yet, that which makes ourselves and them, what 
we and they are, — our self-ness and their self-ness — raises a 
question we cannot answer ; here is, we feel, a something 
which overpasses our means of investigation. Men, however, 
do not stay to discuss such questions, or to test the origin and 
limits of intellectual conceptions before accepting the fact. 
They do not even ask whether Philosophical victory sits on 

yet, the world does exist in fact. Kant goes on to subject other cosmo- 
logical ideas to the same enigmatical reasoning, with the same conse- 
quences. 

Some readers of purely modern science, may illustrate this question of 
the " conceivable" by what has been written on that extraordinary riddle, 
the " four dimensions of space." They will see opinions pro and con in 
an article by Professor Sylvester in Nature vol. 1. A note (p. 238) 
contains one conclusion of the Professor's, interesting as his answer to a 
question asked by us a few paragraphs back. He says, " If an Aristotle, 
or Descartes, or Kant assures me that he recognises God in the conscience, 
I accuse my own blindness if I fail to see with him .... I acknow- 
ledge two separate sources of authority, — the collective sense of man- 
kind, and the illumination of privileged intellects." Plato then may 
have really seen more than Lucretius — Coleridge more than Comte or 
Littre'. 



152 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



the banner of Idealism, pure or constructive ; Realism mate- 
rialistic or natural ; — or whether it crowns any other imagina- 
ble variety of cosmological theorem. We are perfectly sure of 
our facts ; and no array of possible difficulties whatsoever can 
prevail to shake our assurance. 

Let us leave for the present, in its native shadows, the 
central point of our own self; the original centre of our earliest 
apparent universe. Yet, if we cannot know this first growing- 
point of our individual life, it may be useful to inquire what 
can we know about it ? can we learn, for example, how that 
inner vitality, once begun, is maintained and fed ? — By a 
process of receiving into itself, (we are told), the aliment which 
flows through our senses. We are also told, (as appeared in 
the last chapter), how very requisite is a knowledge of natural 
processes. Let us, then, look at this process of sense-alimenta- 
tion, narrowing the problem as much as possible. We have 
already cut off one end of it — the germ-point of the self- 
stimulated ; and will now cut off another piece — the assimi- 
lation of mental ideas when elaborated. We simply ask how 
does this food from without, get into us ? The widest avenue 
of entrance is proverbially our sense of eyesight. Its infor- 
mation, (as people in general agree, from Horace down to Mr. 
Mill), being gathered through many definite impressions, and 
received from all distances, is at once the most significant, and 
the most commanding. The first step is clear. We see by 
impinging rays of light, — movements in a luminiferous ether, 
making images on the sensitive network of the eye; a cir- 
cumstance ascertained by the same sense of sight which 
receives the image. From this delicate surface, begins a 
second series of movements; — they take place this time in 
an organized nerve-material, and are carried, like telegraph- 
currents, to the Sensory. Arrived there, we may next 
suppose that they excite some new motions, or corpuscular 
changes. Do we know — can we know any more? Is the 
grammar or dictionary wiitten which translates them into 
the language of the mind; or teaches us how we have, 
since our infancy, worked a perpetual miracJe of speech 
respecting each of them ? The eye, as an optical instru- 



CONDITIONS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 153 



ment, (c) is a marvel of science displayed; the eye as an 
instrument of intelligence, especially of human intelligence, 
is a marvel of inscrutable mystery. 

The mysteries of every- day life are the last things dreamed 
of in every-day philosophy. When we wake up to their 
existence, it is astonishing to find how continually, without 
being able to explain things, we can feel, and know them ; — 
know them that is in the sense of acting intelligently (without 
theorizing) upon them. 

The example we have taken, teaches us several good and 
important lessons. There is in it much we can understand ; 
much that we cannot understand; and a twilight territory 
between the intelligible and the non-intelligible. All three 
are, of course, mixed together when we speak of sight, — in 
itself, a matter of every-day experience. So far as the 
mechanical construction of an optical chamber goes, every- 
thing seems obvious. We can, likewise, perceive how well 
contrived is the apparatus for washing and wiping the outside 
transparent surface. Also, the value of its arched hedge 
against irritants dropping upon the eye-ball from above ; and 
of the arrangements for altering both axis and focus instan- 
taneously. But what does this instrument enable us to see ? 
Not the rays of light themselves, — only objects which they 
illuminate. The space traversed by rays from all suns and 
all stars, remains itself unseen. The ether which fills space is 
invisible, — yet its motions make the light of the world* 
Then, too, the nervous screen on which these ray movements 
are received, is not sensitive to all transmitted undulations. 
Red excites the optic nerve by striking it with four hundred 
and seventy-four millions of millions of wave-impacts in a 
single second. Violet strikes it in the same time with six 
hundred and ninety-nine millions of millions of impulses.! 

(c) The advantages and defects of the optical structure of our human 
eyes have been carefully estimated by Helmholtz. He has also discussed 
the difficulties attending eyesight considered as a sensation and per- 
ception. Extracts from his clear yet popular Lectures are given in 
Additional Note B. 

* Proceedings of the Royal Institution. V. 456. 

f All theories of light require these immense numbers. Sir J. Her- 



154 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



These two colours are the extremes of the light octave. In an 
octave of sound, the highest note vibrates twice as quickly as 
the lowest. So too, the shortest wave of violet is half the 
length of the longest red wave, and its motion is twice as 
rapid. But the curious point is that the human ear receives 
eleven octaves in the scale of sound ; * — the human eye has a 
range over only one octave in the scale of light. 

Our remarks have carried us over the borders of the 
twilight territory, — a circumstance we may ascertain by 

schel says there is no " mode of conceiving the subject which does not 
call upon us to admit the exertion of mechanical forces which may well 
be termed infinite." The numeration in the text is a rough and ready 
shape of statement at once intelligible. But it is interesting to view the 
subject more exactly. — Light travels in one second 192,000 miles. Each 
mile contains 63,360 inches, and in each inch are 39,000 waves of red 
light, calculated at their mean length. Now, multiply these three sets 
of figures together, and we get a rate of 474,439,680,000,000 red waves per 
second. The mean length of a violet wave is the g 7 * 0o th part of an 
inch ; and by a like multiplication we find a product of 699,494,400,000,000 
of violet light-strokes thrown upon the retina in each second. The phrase 
1 1 millions of millions " is used in the text, because few people realize the 
idea of any arithmetical whole beyond a million. 

* "What we hear" writes Professor Max Miiller "when listening to 
a chorus or a symphony is a commotion of elastic air, of which the wildest 
sea would give a very inadequate image. The lowest tone which the ear 
perceives is due to about 30 vibrations in one second, the highest to about 
4,000. Consider then what happens in a Presto when thousands of voices 
and instruments are simultaneously producing waves of air, each wave 
crossing the other, not only like the surface waves of the water, but like 
spherical bodies, and, as it would seem, without any perceptible disturb- 
ance ; consider that each tone is accompanied by secondary tones, that 
each instrument has its peculiar timbre, due to secondary vibrations ; 
and, lastly, let us remember that all this cross-fire of waves, all this 
whirlpool of sound, is moderated by laws which determine what we call 
harmony, and by certain traditions or habits which determine what we 
call melody — both these elements being absent in the songs of birds — that 
all this must be reflected like a microscopic photograph on the two small 
organs of hearing, and there excite not only perception, but perception 
followed by a new feeling even more mysterious, which we call either 
pleasure or pain ; and it will be clear that we are surrounded on all sides 
by miracles transcending all we are accustomed to call miraculous, and 
yet disclosing to the genius of an Euler or a Newton laws which admit of 
the most minute mathematical determination." Science of Language, 
Second Series, p. 115. 



CONDITIONS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 



155 



putting into words what we think we know, and our reasons 
for thinking that we know it. If the eye be in focus, (but 
not otherwise), a line of light — that is to say moving impon- 
derable matter of extreme tenuity — so passes through its 
transparent liquids as to strike a sensitive spot, and there 
produce what is called an image. We apprehend in our minds 
this image-producing function as a relation between light and 
the effect realized. A relation definite and exact, — in scientific 
language a "constant"; which we can formulate into optical 
laws, and thus express with useful nicety. Taking advantage 
of the laws thus obtained, and employing that light-power 
which everywhere blesses our world, we reproduce the like 
image upon a screen. Its likeness we gather from comparison, 
by looking into an eye from without. Both images, thus seen 
by us, are in point of fact similar sensations. 

A philosophic reader may at once perceive what the Idealist 
will infer respecting this act of comparison. Neither image — 
on retina or on screen — exists apart from the eye. So far as 
we know, if there were no eyes there would be no images ; 
and some writers (e.g., Schleiden) have positively affirmed that 
without eyes all would be, not only to us, but in itself, dark- 
ness ; — the world absolutely void of Light. But the truth 
may be summed in a sentence. Light is not for the eye in 
the same sense that the eye is for light. Light is for other 
things besides. It exerts its activity on life, animal aud 
vegetable ; — on inorganic substances ; — and in other ways 
likewise. — Going no further than our screen, we can so 
manage matters as to engrave and otherwise fix the image 
thrown upon it ; — in other words our moving line of impon- 
derable matter will produce further effects, chemical and 
mechanical, visible and palpable. 

Proceeding to a cross-examination of the knowledge with 
which we have credited ourselves, our next business is to try 
whether we can verify the objectivity of our optical image. 
Now it impresses sight in two respects, — as superficial form — 
and as colour. Tlje family of forms is, we are aware widely 
connected. Sound evokes them. Draw a violin bow across 
a string stretched over finely silted sand, and the different 



156 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 

notes will be correlated by a diversity of shapes,* into which 
the sand will arrange itself. Therefore, we ought to find 
means of verifying Form without much difficulty. Indeed we 
do so every day satisfactorily ; our hands are perpetually 
demonstrating the general accuracy of our eyes, and even 
those delicate instruments our finger-ends, do not always add 
much to the information sight has given us. 

But about colour ? Distinct colour- waves have (as we said 
before) distinct velocities, and are therefore objectively dis- 
tinguished even in the inorganic universe. They also act 
differently upon the growth of animals and plants, — and other 
distinctions might be added. The sensation is, however, 
our point, — the special thing called colour both by careful 
speakers and in child parlance, — what do we really know 
about this ? Little indeed except as an impression received 
by sight. The man born in complete blindness taking a piece 
of red cloth to examine, described the fabric minutely ; but, 
when asked if he could say anything about its redness^ 
likened that "hue angry and brave" to the sound of a trumpet. 
A simile most conclusive, — suggested probably by his having 
often heard of certain " scarlet-coated gentry"; — and proving 
beyond doubt that colour is non-existent in the sensory of 
a person affected from birth by a deep-seated lesion. To one 
less thoroughly blind, spectra are possible, and red light may 
be produced under pressure. It thus appears, that colour 
must be perceived by a nervous sub-stratum, called the rod 
and cone layer ; and hence we explain our power of distinctly 
seeing the blood-vessels of the retina lying immediately before 
that struct ure.f 

These curiosities of vision shew that our powers of verifying 

* There is a much more scientific mode of trying, this experiment. A 
description of the instrument (Kaleidophone), and cuts of the figures 
produced, may be seen in Tyndall on Sound, pp. 132. seq. 

f There is reason for believing that a large proportion of animal eyes 
see much as ours do when in a normal state. Colourblindness is frequent 
in Man and occurs between red and green, yet a bull distinguishes the 
two like a healthy human being. He is allured by the sight of a green 
field, and lashes himself into fury when a red rag is waved before him. 

The eyes of insects are very far removed in structure from ours. A 



CONDITIONS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 157 



shape are superior to our powers of verifying colour;* add, 
too, that the latter sensation, (as an idealist might maintain,) 
is known to be sometimes unreal, since it occurs without a 
coloured object. We can produce it, for instance, by gazing 
at the sun — a phenomenon mentioned by Aristotle. But then, 

butterfly's compound eye contains 17,000 tubes, that of the Mordella 
beetle 25,000. Their perception of colours appears vivid and distinct. 
They resemble birds, reptiles, and other creatures in choosing for their 
lairs and resting-places objects coloured like themselves. It is not difficult 
to mount one of these compound eyes, so as to look through it by aid of 
a lens placed in focus. Leeuwenhoeck looked through the eye of a dragon 
fly (made up of 12,544 tubes), " and viewed the steeple of a church which 
was 299 feet high, and 750 feet from the place where he stood. He could 
plainly see the steeple, though not apparently larger than the point of 
a fine needle. He also viewed a house in the same manner, and could 
discern the front, distinguish the doors and windows, and perceive 
whether they were open or shut." See Insect Miscellanies, p. 129. 

* Two points connected with colour admit of being easily experimented 
on, and deserve from their interest to be made the subjects of repeated 
observations. 

The first has relation to the question of primary colours ; — are they 
alike in man and in all the lower animals 1 — In birds and reptiles there 
are anatomical reasons for believing the primaries to be red, yellow, and 
blue. But are they the same in our race 1 — may they not more probably 
be red, green, and violet ? In this case yellow is the transition from red 
to green, blue from green to violet. As colour blindness consists in an 
insensibility to red, and as the outer circle of the field of vision is feeble 
in its reds, the number of experiments which might be suggested is 
evidently considerable. 

Let a person place two threads respectively red and green near the 
bridge of the nose, so as to be seen by the inner angle of the pupil only. 
If dexterously moved, both seem green ; — if not, both will in time become 
black. Where the want of sensitive appreciation of red is great, the 
same result follows in every part of the field of sight. Thus reverend 
gentlemen in former times have been induced to wear scarlet hose under 
the impression that they had put on black silk ; and in these railroad 
days many persons find themselves unable to distinguish between the 
safety and the danger signal lights. It seems strange indeed that any 
scientific advisers of railway Boards should have recommended for use 
the two colours, above all others, most likely to get confounded. 

The theory which supposes red, green, and violet to be Man's three 
primary colours is the hypothesis of our great countryman Dr. Thomas 
Young, and deserves much more consideration than was for a long time 
awarded it. If we may judge of his theory by his appreciation of pictures 
it must have been excellent ; — the present writer saw with admiration in 



158 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



this ideal sense-affection ranges with a variety of others> which 
taken together constitute a very much wider law. Not to 
mention many superinduced mental states, we see light under 
the influence of a touch or blow, — of electricity, — of chemicals, 
such as narcotic medicines, which attack the nervous system. 
We hear sound under like appliances stimulating the auditor} 7 
nerve. And the whole of these affections are to be explained 
by another Aristotelian doctrine, extended and pushed to its 

1845 the grand series of Reynolds' portraits which Dr. Young had left 
behind him. 

The second topic of interest is the inquiry into the number and tone 
of subjective colours. A perfect theory of colour ought, of course, to 
embrace all possible human sensations of the kind. Now many persons 
are able to see in dreams a rich amber light far softer and more pure 
than any tint ever beheld by the Eye. It generally appears to irradiate 
Space, and silvery figures, most often the celestial orbs, float within it. 
A still more beautiful production of reflex energy exerted after tranquil 
rest is the blending of delicate green with a hyacinthine hue quite strange 
to this world, and indescribably lovely in its tender shadings off. By 
means of this subjective activity the experiments of Goethe and J. Muller 
may be varied almost ad libitum. The easiest plan is on first waking to 
keep the eyelids steadily closed, and watch for the unbidden rise of tints. 
Persons of strong pictorial and poetic powers can, after some practice, 
control their appearance and succession ; and much diversity may be 
produced by slightly separating the fringe of eyelashes and looking 
between the loosely pressed fingers. The remarkable point in these and 
similar experiments seems to be that we are thus enabled to gaze upon 
beauties more marvellous than the outward eye ever beheld — yet we 
see them. 

Another and a painful source of knowledge on this subject consists in 
registering the visual impressions of persons bodily or mentally diseased. 
The difference between these and the normal impressions of healthy 
people would seem to arise from reflex action, the disordered sensory or 
mind reacting upon the optic apparatus ; or, as it may be said, the centre 
of our being is through these aberrations made manifest in its control of 
the circumference. 

Now, it will be obvious to any reflective person how very important 
all information we can acquire respecting this central empire over the 
impressions of our sense-nerves may become when we try to estimate the 
conditions of human knowledge. If it be true that the Mind imposes 
laws of activity on the nervous system even when receiving impressions 
from it, then the necessity we are under of thinking in accordance with 
certain inly imposed laws receives a most striking illustration. And the 
inference from it carries an a fortiori probability since our thoughts lie 
nearer to our mental centre than any of our sense-impressions. 



CONDITIONS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 159 



consequences. Special senses have their own proper faculties, 
and when called into action each exerts its power within its 
special province. Had Aristotle dissected out nerve-fibres, he 
might have discovered the larger empire of specialty now 
known to our anatomists.* 

Idealism easily widens its doubt, to correspond with the 
dimensions of the wider nervous law. Does not an aptitude 
for special impressions, so stringently determined as to trans- 
late the antecedent "blow" into the consequent, " light" or 
" sound," disqualify our senses for giving evidence respecting 
supposed facts of the outer world ? As for the " distinctive 
impressibility of the eye," as Mr. Bainf describes colour, it need 

* Nerves of common feeling are acutely sensitive when divided, and the 
patient animal under a Majendie or a dentist utters a sharp shriek. The 
case is different with motor nerves, with those of the sympathetic system, 
and with (what is more to our purpose) nerves of sensation. It seems 
clear that mechanical injuries, or even touches, excite them in the direc- 
tion of their own special functions. Auditory nerves feel a shock as a 
sound, — optic nerves receive it as a sudden and brilliant light. We are 
doubly assured from these effects of the true functions belonging to the 
several sets of nerves. Disease and injury are great discoverers of what 
ought to be healthy susceptibilities. In such cases, however, they prove 
also something more agreeable to think upon. They prove that suffering 
is confined within definite limits, and that economy of pain forms part of 
the universal design, for the sensitive animal as well as the sensitive 
man. If all our nerves shrank equally with equal tenderness, life would 
be a history of protracted agony. Yet one might have expected, prima 
facie, that a fibre which telegraphs shapes and colours with their Mendings, 
would eloquently tell the story of its own occasional anguish. And our 
whole nervous framework might have been conceived as an instrument 
of torture. It has not been so constituted. 

Per contra, the nerves of common feeling assert their own vocation. — 
u A brazen canstick turned " sets the teeth on edge, and troubles the 
skin with horripilation. Believers in ghosts — and also disbelievers — are 
aware that some sights 

" Make knotted and combined locks to part, 
And each particular hair to stand on end. 7 ' 

For extended information on this subject compare Additional Note C. 

f Aristotle so described it before Mr. Bain and other modern writers, 
"to yap bparbv iarc xpup-a," Be Anima II. 7. 1. As Kampe carefully 
observes, " so ist die Farbe (nicht die gefarbten Korper) das Eigenthiim- 
liche des Gesichtssinns." See also his note, Erkenntnisstheorie des 
Aristoteles, p. 88. 



160 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



not be held real except for our own sensoriuni, (d) and if colour 
be a questionable reality, other alleged realities become ques- 
tionable too. The world we live in, may be a totally different 

(d) Compare Helmholtz on " The Sensation of Sight," Lectures, pp. 
256, 7, and 259. 

" We have already seen enough to answer the question whether it is 
possible to maintain the natural and innate conviction that the quality 
of our sensations, and especially our sensations of sight, give us a true 
impression of corresponding qualities in the outer world. It is clear that 
they do not. The question was really decided by Johannes Muller's 
deduction from well ascertained facts of the law of specific nervous energy. 
Whether the rays of the sun appear to us as colour, or as warmth, does 
not at all depend upon their own properties, but simply upon whether 
they excite the fibres of the optic nerve, or those of the skin. Pressure 
upon the eyeball, a feeble current of electricity passed through it, a 
narcotic drug carried to the retina by the blood, are capable of exciting 
the sensation of light just as well as the sunbeams. The most complete 
difference offered by our several sensations, that namely between those 
of sight, of hearing, of taste, of smell, and of touch — this deepest of all 
distinctions, so deep that it is impossible to draw any comparison of like- 
ness, or unlikeness, between the sensations of colour and of musical tones 
— does not, as we now see, at all depend upon the nature of the external 
object, but solely upon the central connections of the nerves which are 

affected But not only uneducated persons, who are accus - 

tomed to trust blindly to their senses, even the educated, who know that 
their senses may be deceived, are inclined to demur to so complete a 
want of any closer correspondence in kind between actual objects and 
the sensations they produce than the law I have just expounded. For 
instance, natural philosophers long hesitated to admit the identity of the 
rays of light and of heat, and exhausted all possible means of escaping 
a conclusion which seemed to contradict the evidence of their senses. 

" Another example is that of Goethe, as I have endeavoured to show 
elsewhere. He was led to contradict Newton's theory of colours, because 
he could not persuade himself that white, which appears to our sensation 
as the purest manifestation of the brightest light, could be composed of 
darker colours. It was Newton's discovery of the composition of light 
that was the first germ of the modern doctrine of the true functions of 
the senses ; and in the writings of his contemporary, Locke, were correctly 
laid down the most important principles on which the right interpretation 
of sensible qualities depends. But, however clearly we may feel that 
here lies the difficulty for a large number of people, I have never found 
the opposite conviction of certainty derived from the senses so distinctly 
expressed that it is possible to lay hold of the point of error : and the 
reason seems to me to lie in the fact that beneath the popular notions 
on the subject lie other and more fundamentally erroneous conceptions." 



CONDITIONS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 



161 



world from what we are taught, generation after generation, 
to believe it. Who can lay down the limits of what our minds 
create for themselves outside us ? * The mental disease of the 
madman causes his eye to see that which is not. Guilt and 
sickness fill bedchambers with unreal spectres. Putting disease 
aside, arid taking the case of healthy eye and healthy mind, 
it is confessedly difficult to define the exact province of each. 
A boy couched by Cheselden f saw all things in one plane ; 
there was no perspective, and objects in the room seemed to 
touch his eyeballs. The mind creates perspective, how much 
then may it not create ? The mind also refuses to surrender 
its own associations at the bidding of optical laws. Mr. 
Wheatstone's ingenious instrument called the Pseudoscope, 
brings into play laws which reverse the impressions of solidity 
and hollowness. A person looking through it steadily at the 
face of a statue sees a hollow mask. The convexity of feature 
is gone, and a concave set of features (representing the bust 
reversed) is perceived in its stead. ' But, let the same person 
gaze through his pseudoscope ever so long at the face of a 
human being, and he will look for a like reversal in vain. 
The flesh and blood features refuse to change; — in other 
words, the mind refuses to yield its long -accustomed impres- 

* Is there, asks Idealistic Scepticism, any outside world at all 1 
We have all of us always believed in the veritable existence of this 
outside world from our childhood. So have we believed always in our 
own real and continued personal existence. The unyielding objectivities 
concerning which our senses inform us — the identical Self which receives 
their information — are entities no man ordinarily thinks of calling in 
question. 

Let any one sit down and try to imagine himself a human animal let 
loose upon life without a firm belief in either of these two primary con- 
victions. What could life be to him 1 to his descendants ? to the world 
of men if similarly unbelieving % Yet what are the conditions or evi- 
dences of veracity upon which his and his fellows' present convictions 
must necessarily repose 1 Can he and others help believing them true 1 
and why? — This " why" is a safe answer to the most plausible as well 
as the most refined objection against such primary beliefs as those pre- 
mised by Natural Theology. 

t Cheselden's case is reported in the Philosophical Transactions for 
1728, and also in his Anatomy. Respecting the point above quoted he 
is confirmed by Mr. Nunneley, " On the Organs of Vision,' 7 1858. 

11 



162 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



sion.* If these things and others like them are fairly considered, 
what becomes of our readings in the unclosed book of Nature ? 
The nature we see is our own thought reflected back again. 
Nature's answers take not only tone and compass, but mean- 
ing and utterance from our own interrogations. We think 
that we are assimilating knowledge, when we are actually 
engaged in manufacturing aliments to suit our own intellectual 
digestions. The most inward of all things, — our essential 
self, — at once retired into shadow when we pursued it ; 
and now, in trying to show how self is fed by substance 
from without, we have learned to suspect that all its food is 
unsubstantial, (e) 

We may henceforth consider ourselves face to face with 

* See Dr. Carpenter's Principles of Human Physiology. Ed. 7. p. 713. 
§ 635. 

(e) The following quaint apology for our senses at the expense of our 
understanding may be new to the majority of my readers : — 

' ' We have seen two notorious instances of sensitive deception, which 
justifie the charge of Petron. Arbiter. 

Fallunt nos oculi, vagique sensus 
Oppressa ratione mentiuntur. 

And yet to speak properly, and to do our senses right, simply they are 
not deceived, but only administer an occasion to our forward understand- 
ings to deceive themselves : and so though they are some way accessory 
to our delusion ; yet the more principal faculties are the Capital offenders. 
Thus if the Senses represent the Earth as jixt and immoveable ; they give 
us the truth of their Sentiments : To sense it is so, and it would be deceit 
to present it otherwise. For (as we have shewn) though it do move in 

itself ; it rests to us, who are carry'd with it But if hence 

our Understandings falsely deduct, that there is the same quality in the 
external impressor ; 'tis, it is criminal, our sense is innocent. When the 
Ear tingles, we really hear a sound.: If we judge it without us, it's the 
fallacy of our Judgments. The apparitions of our frighted Phancies are 
real sensibles: But if we translate them without the compass of our 
Brains, and apprehend them as external objects ; it's the unwary rashness 
of our Understanding deludes us. And if our disaffected Palates resent 
nought but bitterness from our choicest viands, we truly tast the unpleas- 
ing quality, though falsely conceive it in that, which is no more then the 
occasion of its production. If any find fault with the novelty of the 
notion ; the learned St. A ustin stands ready to confute the charge : and 
they who revere Antiquity, will derive satisfaction from so venerable 
a suffrage. He tells us, Si quis remum frangi in aqua opinatur, et, cum 



CONDITIONS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 



163 



Sphinx ; and it is well to take the true measure of her linea- 
ments. If the above reasoning be sound, to know, is to make 
a mirror and reflect ourselves back from it. To verify, is to put 
ourselves in new postures before our infallible mirror. Each 
fresh item of induction, is a freshly reflected phantom. At all 
events, the contrary position will never be established. Igno- 
rant as we are, respecting the true centre of our mental firma- 
ment, we must necessarily be always more ignorant respecting 
all possibilities which seemingly outlie its glowing horizon. 
No one who rationally weighs the worth of a fact, or who 

aufertur, integrari ; non malum hohet internnncinm, sed mains est Judex. 
And onward to this purpose, The sense could not otherwise perceive it 
in the water, neither ought it : For since the Water is one thing, and the 
Air another ; 'tis requisite and necessary, that the sense should be as 
different as the medium:. Wherefore the Eye sees aright; if there be 
a mistake, 'tis the Judgement's the Deceiver. Elsewhere he saith, that 
our Eyes misinform us not, but faithfully transmit their resentment to 
the mind. And against the Scepticks, That it's a piece of injustice to 
complain of our senses, and to exact from them an account, which is 
beyond the sphear of their notice : and resolutely determines, Quicquid 
possunt videre oculi, verum vidmt. So that what we have said of the 
senses deceptions, is rigidly to be charg'd only on our careless Understand- 
ings, misleading us through the ill management of sensible informations." 
Glanvill, Vanity of Dogmatizing. Chap. x. First Ed. p. 91, seq. 

The reader may like to consider how far Grlanvill's apology for the 
senses is removed from the following propositions laid down by a recent 
writer just quoted who thus defends while he limits the veracity of 
sense-impressions : — 

' ' What we directly apprehend," writes Professor Helmholtz, " is not 
the immediate action of the external exciting cause upon 'the ends of our 
nerves, but only the changed condition of the nervous fibres which we 
call the state of excitation or functional activity." And further on : — 
" The simple rule for all illusions of sight is this : we always believe that 
we see such objects as would, under conditions of normal vision, produce the 
retinal image of ivhich we are actually conscious. If these images are such 
as could not be produced by any normal kind of observation, we judge of 
them according to their nearest resemblance ; and in forming this judg- 
ment, we more easily neglect the parts of sensation which are imperfectly 
than those which are perfectly apprehended. When more than one inter- 
pretation is possible, we usually waver involuntarily between them ; but 
it is possible to end this uncertainty by bringing the idea of any of the 
possible interpretations we choose as vividly as possible before the mind 
by a conscious effort of the will." Helmholtz on The Recent Progress of 
the Theory of Vision, pp. 230, 31 and p. 30T. 



164 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 

decomposes it into its elementary constituents, will ever be 
absurd enough to imagine that he can disprove the ideal 
theory by proving the truth of its opposite. 

The strongest strain of Idealism comes upon the last sen- 
tence. Some years ago, English philosophers had agreed in 
the conclusion that all debates must for the future be settled 
by an appeal to facts. Could there be a more happily chosen 
ground for arbitration? — or one better suited to the calibre 
of everybody concerning whose business-like reflections we 
might say, with King Henry, — 

" His thinkings are below the moon" ? 

Some inquiring spirits preferred "law," but then they agreed 
with all others, (except transcendentalists,) that a law to be 
valid must also be a fact. 

A belief in this settlement still pervades most non-philo- 
sophic circles. A fact is now-a-days an infallible remedy for 
the disturbed mind ; just as once 

~ " the sovereign' st thing on earth 
Was parmaceti for an inward bruise." 

A mind too disturbed to abstain from logical litigation when 
this receipt is administered, must certainly be afflicted with 
monomania. Nobody, of course, (whether Idealist or Trans- 
cendent alist,) need feel much aggrieved by being called mad. 
At some time or other, it is the common lot of all, from a 
murderer proud of being caught red-handed in our day, to a 
Jewish Pharisee and the son of a Pharisee, long ago departed 
to his rest. Besides, some madnesses are so fortunate as to 
justify themselves, an event now happening to Idealists* In 

* Two acute reasoners, who will be alternately acquitted of madness 
fey contending schools of thought, have arrived at conclusions very favour- 
able to the sanity of idealizing men. In his first lecture at the Royal 
Institution, Professor Masson spoke in the following terms of Hume and 
Fichte. " There is the system of Nihilism, or, as it may be better called, 
JSon-Substantialism. According to this system, the Phsenomenal Cosmos, 
whether regarded as consisting of two parallel successions of phsenomena 
(Mind and Matter), or of only one (Mind or Matter), resolves itself, on 
analysis, into an absolute Nothingness, — mere appearances with no credible 
substratum of Reality ; a play of phantasms in a void. If there have 



CONDITIONS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 165 



Germany, France and England, the persuasion gains ground 
that no tasks are so difficult as first to define, and secondly to 
establish a fact. 

Now the task of a Natural Theologian, is to establish, (if he 
can), the greatest and most solemn of all facts. In order to do 

been no positive or dogmatic Nihilists, yet both. Hume for one purpose, 
and Fichte for another, have propounded Nihilism as the ultimate issue 
of all reasoning that does not start with some a priori postulate." — Recent 
British Philosophy, p. 66. The reader will, observe that to raise the 
question fully, we have spoken of the special form of Idealism to which 
Mr. Mill gives the first place in his description, (Examination of Hamil- 
ton's Philosophy, p. 8.) "According to one of the forms, the sensations 
which, in common. parlance, we are said to receive from objects, are not 
only all that, we can possibly know of the objects, but are all that we 

have any ground for believing to exist. Those who hold this opinion 

are said to doubt or deny the existence of matter. They are some- 
times called by the name Idealists, sometimes by that of Sceptics, 
according to the other opinions which they hold. They include the 
followers of Berkeley and those of Hume. Among recent thinkers, the 
acute and accomplished Professor Ferrier, though by a circuitous path, 
and expressing himself in a very different phraseology, seems to have 
arrived at essentially the same point of view. These philosophers main- 
tain the- -Relativity of our knowledge in the most extreme form in which 
the doctrine can be understood, since they contend, not merely that all 
we can possibly know of anything is the manner in which it affects 
the human faculties, but that there is nothing else to be known ; that 
affections of human or of some other minds are all that we can know 
to exist." 

Mr. Mill's own position will be found in his 11th Chapter. After 
defining Matter to be a "Permanent Possibility of Sensation," (p. 227) 
and explaining his definition, he writes in a note (p. 232), the following 
decisive sentences. "My able American critic, Dr. H. B. Smith, contends 
through several pages that these facts afford no proofs that objects are 
external to us. I never pretended that they do . I am accounting for 
our conceiving, or representing to ourselves, the Permanent Possibilities 
as real objects external to us. I do not believe that the real externality 
to us of anything, except other minds, is capable of proof." 

Mr. O'Hanlon's pamphlet entitled "A Criticism of John Stuart 
Mill's Pure Idealism ; and an attempt to shew that, if logically carried 
out, it is Pure Nihilism," seems less known than it deserves to be. Mr. 
Mill noticed and answered it in his 3rd Edition — chiefly among the 

criticisms commencing p. 244. Mr. O'Hanlon's early decease has given 

a painful interest to his promising labours. Some paragraphs from his 
now scarce pamphlet are placed at the end of Additional Note D, on 
tl Pure Idealism." 



166 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



his work honestly, he must ascertain as far as possible the 
conditions of proof, the ground on which fact -knowledge 
reposes. And it will be admitted that the problem of evidence 
raised by Idealism, is difficult, crucial, and underlies all other 
problems. "The most fundamental questions in philosophy," 
says Mr. Mill, " are those which seek to determine what we 
are able to know of external objects, and by what evidence we 
know it," * 

This field of inquiry is therefore of the most supreme interest 
to us. Idealism possesses an additional attraction for any one 
who argues under a belief in -the final victory of truth. Both 
sides of the argument may be placed in high relief, without 
incurring the imputation of bad faith, or worse morality ; and 
thus Idealism furnishes what used to be sought for during the 
days of tournaments, — a strictly neutral ground. 

In this ordeal let no one think a single effort directed 

" To crash a butterfly or brain a gnat." 

Reasoners on "hard texts" seldom commit any error between 
premises and conclusion ; — granted the former, the other will 
surely follow. Most oversights occur— or are slipped in — over 
the first postulates. f These generally appear very simple and 

* On Hamilton, p. 6, Mill is thus echoed from across the broad 
Atlantic; — " The profoundest question of philosophy turns on the rela- 
tion of Thought to Being, Mind to Matter, Subject to Object, or (in 
empiricistic phrase) Organism to Environment. Is the Organism purely 
the product of the Environment 1 Then we have Empiricism, Sensation- 
alism, Materialism, whose motto is that of Destutt-Tracy, — " Penser c'est 
sentir." Is the Environment the product of the Organism 1 Then we 
have Transcendentalism, Egoism, Idealism, whose motto is that of 
Berkeley, — "The esse of objects is percipi." F. E. Abbot, in The Index 
(American), for July 27, 1872. 

f Lord Macaulay has some pertinent and characteristic remarks con- 
cerning this topic in his literary estimate of Dr. Johnson. ' ' How it 
chanced that a man who reasoned on his premises so ably, should assume 
his premises so foolishly, is one of the great mysteries of human nature. 
The same inconsistency may be observed in the schoolmen of the middle 
ages. Those writers show so much acuteness and force of mind in 
arguing on their wretched data, that a modem reader is perpetually at 
a loss to comprehend how such minds came by such data. Not a flaw 
in the superstructure of the theory which they are rearing escapes their 



CONDITIONS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 167 

very true, and pass unquestioned. Yet, no primary truth can ever 
be very simple to man, else why so many conscientious doubters? 

What indeed can seem more simply true than the admission 
of a fact ? Yet facts are often inspissated theories, while many 
theories are merely explained facts. One of the greatest 
authorities on Inductive Philosophy writes thus (Whewell's 
Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences. Ed. 2. Vol. I. p. 45) — 
" We are often told that such a thing is a Fact ; A Fact and 
not a Theory, with all the emphasis which, in speaking or 
writing, tone or italics or capitals can give. We see from 
what has been said, that when this is urged, before we can 
estimate the truth, or the value of the assertion, we must ask 
to whom is it a Fact ? what habits of thought, what previous 
information, what Ideas does it imply, to conceive the Fact 
as a Fact? Does not the apprehension of the Fact imply 
assumptions which may with equal justice be called Theory 
and which are perhaps false Theory ? in which case, the Fact 
is no Fact. Did not the ancients assert it as a Fact, that the 
earth stood still, and the stars moved ? and can any Fact have 
stronger apparent evidence to justify persons in asserting" it 
emphatically than this had ? " 

The generality of English jurymen might be expected to 
give an affirmative verdict. For have they not seen with 
their own eyes the Sun rise up in the East, ascend to the top 
of the sky, and go down in the West ? And is not seeing, 
believing ? 

vigilance. Yet they are blind to the obvious unsoundness of the founda- 
tion. It is the same with some eminent lawyers. Their legal argu- 
ments are intellectual prodigies, abounding with the happiest analogies 
and the most refined distinctions. The principles of their arbitrary 
science being once admitted, the statute-book and the reports being once 
assumed as the foundations of reasoning, these men must be allowed to 
be perfect masters of logic. But if a question arises as to the postulates 
on which their whole system rests, if they are called upon to vindicate 
the fundamental maxims of that system which they have passed their 
lives in studying, these very men often talk the language of savages or 
of children." (Essays, Ed. 1852. p. 175.) As to the schoolmen, anyone 
who wishes to form a fair idea of their acuteness with little trouble to 
himself, may consult the "Synopsis Distinctionum " of H. L. Castameus, 
a book found in most learned libraries . 



168 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



The question, what elements are required to yield the product 
of trustworthy perception, phenomenon, or fact, is investigated 
by Dr. Whewell through several pages preceding the one from 
which we have quoted. After discussing it at length, he writes 
(p. 42) : " And thus, we have an intelligible distinction of Fact 
and Theory, if we consider Theory as a conscious, and Fact as 
an unconscious inference, from the phenomena which are 
presented to our senses." 

The subject is in itself so singularly interesting that a few 
more extracts are added in our Additional Notes. (/) Let the 
reader, while perusing them, remember that Idealism once so 

(/) See Additional Note E. — The great interest of this subject for our 
purpose lies in the circumstance that the relation of Theory to Fact is 
in effect a question most closely akin to the one already mooted concern- 
ing the relation of our Sensations to our Perceptions (compare Additional 
Note B). These two questions are indeed so very similar as to be in the 
main identical. What we want to learn regarding both relations, is, first, 
the extent of the relativity to our human nature ; in other words how 
much we have mentally put into our Theories and Sensations before we 
treat them as Facts and Perceptions. Secondly, what reason we have 
for believing any of our knowledge comprehended under either or both 
of these relativities (Perception and Fact) to be true beyond our human 
sphere ; and, above all, whether we are able to assert, on good grounds, 
that such and such parts of either kind of our knowledge are absolutely 
and immutably true ?- — 

If, for example, we ask — Is it thus true that there are real objects 
external to ourselves 1 ? "I do not believe," Mr. Mill has told us, "that 
the real externality to us of anything, except other minds, is capable of 
proof." And a few lines further, "The view I take of externality, in 
the sense in which I acknowledge it as real, could not be more accurately 
expressed than in Professor Fraser's words." These are " For ourselves 
we can conceive only — (1) An externality to our present and transient 
experience in our own possible experience past and future, and (2) An 
externality to our own conscious experience, in the contemporaneous, as 
well as in the past or future experience of other minds." {On Hamil- 
ton, p. 232, note.) This explanation, Mill had just before observed, is an 
externality in the only sense we need care about ; and it means in plain 
words, that we possess no absolutely true but only some utilitarian know- 
ledge of the real existence of an outside world. We must, however, and 
do care infinitely more for another kind of answer to quite another kind 
of question. Is the antithesis between Right and Wrong, — the Moral 
Imperative "Do this and live, transgress and die,' ; — absolutely and 
immutably true ? If not, who would calculate profit and loss as they 



CONDITIONS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 



169 



sovereign in its empire, is only the other pole of a line of 
thought which just now happens to be in the ascendant. 
Both poles strongly resemble half-truths. And what is more 
delusive in evidence than a half-truth, or more perilously 
sophisticating to the mind of him who utters it ? 

are calculated in the Gospel ; who would or could believe in a Righteous 
that is to say, a Real and True God 1 

Many minds, appalled by the vastness of these issues, and finding no 
satisfactory answer to questions of such infinite importance, have fallen 
back on the position of Dr. Newman in his Crrammar of Assent. But the 
unsatisfactory characteristic attaching to this position, is that there seems 
to be no limit to such Assents, because there appears no Reasonable canon 
or maxim to explain, defend, and regulate them. To the far larger number 
of minds the problem states itself as, a dilemma. There are exactly two 
alternatives open to Man. His choice lies between two contrasted posi- 
tions — the most antagonistic conceivable, yet both resulting from one 
common supposed fact. Ignorance and impotence are the truest cha- 
racters inscribed upon our Reason. Man must decide either for an 
unlimited Doubt such as that which Hume delineates, wide as the uni- 
versal whole of our human Existence ; or else yield the kind of Assent 
to which Dr. Newman invites as being the sole secure refuge for any soul 
driven by despair into a recoil from utter absence of belief and hope — 
the want of everything to trust and love. Now, let it be observed that 
an assent transcending reasonable proof is 3 in effect, a confession that 
Reason falls short of establishing those transcendental truths to which 
the mind has thus assented. And contrariwise, limitless Doubt making 
all else uncertain, affirms with unmistakeable decisiveness the impotence 
of human Reason. — u The observation of human blindness and weakness," 
says Hume, " is the result of all philosophy, and meets us at every turn, 
in spite of our endeavours to elude or avoid it." Hence, we see that 
Hume's conclusion is identical with that underlying a position directly 
antagonistic to his own, and in this respect les extremes se touchent. 

It follows, then, with equal clearness, that any Dilemma which restricts 
human choice to the two alternatives above stated, rests upon a denial 
that Man's Reason can guide Mankind to truth — (and by consequence 
that he can ever feel after and find his God) ; — whilst, conversely, this 
same denial, if posited as a basis of speculation, permits no human choice 
beyond the two horns of a Dilemma thus made necessarily imperative 
upon us all. 

Neither alternative, however, can be accepted by the Natural Theo- 
logian, nor can he possibly receive any such Dilemma as founded in 
Truth or Reason. On the one hand the Superhuman, and Supernatural 
lie outside his science which has for its sphere Nature, including Man's 
Nature ; and which steadily endeavours to attain the true interpretation 
and evidence yielded by both Natures, to a belief extending beyond their 



170 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



The thorough-paced Idealist deals with the presentations of 
his inner consciousness, precisely as the Positivist deals with 
the presentations of his outer senses. They are his phenomena, 
his facts. Beyond the circumstances of their inward occurrence 

present territory and fluent conditions. On the other hand, his science 
becomes impossible if unlimited Doubt is the sole dreary prospect open 
to the philosophic inquirer. And with his science all other sciences must 
perish. Doubt saps the foundations of them all ; common-sense facts, 
scientific theories, and practical every-day beliefs, are all impartially 
shewn to be baseless. So far as our realities are concerned 

■ ■ We are such stuff 
As dreams are made on ; and our little life 
Is rounded with a sleep." 

Science is therefore an alien from Man's world ; the soul an outcast amid 
her own : — 

"As in strange lands a traveller walking slow, 
In doubt and great perplexity, 
A little before moon-rise hears the low 
Moan of an unknown sea ; 

" And knows not if it be thunder or a sound 
Of stones thrown down, or one deep cry 
Of great wild beasts ; then thinketh, ' I have found 
A new land, but I die.' " 

" Not for this," says the same reflective poet — 

"Not for this 
Was common clay ta'en from the common earth, 
Moulded by God, and tempered with the tears 
Of angels to the perfect shape of man." 

Let it be observed in conclusion, that the mode in which common-sense 
people are accustomed to treat the primary tenets of most sciences, and 
the validity of their own ordinary beliefs, may be placed in curious con- 
trast with their attitude towards the proofs of Natural Theology. In the 
former case, acceptance is easy and wholesale ; in the latter, every mind 
seems to bristle with objections. Now there are evidently thousands who 
must surrender their judgments to the demands of a present and pressing 
utility, and must take upon trust a multitude of maxims which they can 
never hope to investigate. The difficulties necessarily involved in each 
and all of these easy acceptations thus remain unsuspected, and cannot 
therefore be placed side by side with the difficulties of Theism. 

But, next arises a serious question. How far can a similar facility of 
wholesale acceptance and a similar absence of comparison with deeper 
truths, be considered a philosophic or even a fair procedure in the case of 
men and women who think themselves into Atheism 1 



CONDITIONS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 



171 



and succession he knows and can know nothing. You may 
arrange them into series of antecedents and consequents, — and 
then the observation becomes a law, — a law of association, 
uniform order, or necessary connection : whichever you may 
choose to call it. In one respect, he has an advantage over the 
Positivist. No thinker equidistant from both, is likely to 
deny that primary facts are for every man, the phenomena 
most immediately apparent to his own consciousness. 

Amongst ordinary men, however, the reasoning Idealist 
seldom appears ; the idealist in feeling and temper is by no 
means rare. A man weary and worn by sorrow or old age, 
thinks and speaks of his life as very like a dream. And 
numbers who have exhausted the strength of self-controllino- 
will, loiter along their way, regardless whether a moving- 
panorama on each hand is or is not, an unreality. Like 
travel-tired travellers down the Danube, or the Rhine, they 
interweave scenes bright and dark, as they float by, in one 
endless train of dimly felt reverie. 

The same characteristic holds good in regard to many a 
Positivist. Very few people have ever examined those iron 
wheels, on which the conclusions of Positively-inclined writers 
seem to run so rapidly. They may be flawed — they may be 
true — hardly any one has thought of sounding them. But 
common life has its Positivism, as well as its Chemistry ; and 
the Positivism of common life is everywhere. It saves labour, 
— you may take facts as you find them. It troubles no one, — 
a Pyrrhonic posture is the easiest of attitudes. It frees busy 
people from moral anxieties, ideal terrors, the shadows of 
futurity. In short, to men of the world it is neither more nor 
less than Indifferentism. 

The comparison between these two Nihilistic tendencies 
might be pushed farther, but it has been carried far enough 
for our purpose. Both sorts, when viewed as principles of 
practical life, coincide in yielding the conclusion we now wish 
to deduce. It is folly to be deterred from the pursuit of 
ultimate truth, by any amount of speculative difficulty what- 
soever. And the reason is plain. Practical truths — the beliefs 
which affect our hearts and lives — are always ultimate truths. 



172 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



To give them up, is to give up our highest and best, — perhaps 
our all. It is worse than useless to quail before intellectual 
obstacles. The Difficult soon begins to appear the Impossible. 

And soon the result ensues, which might naturally be 
expected. Is it possible to imagine any discouragement 
heavier, than the feeling that we can effect little to acquire 
a knowledge of truth, goodness, and God ; — a feeling, that do 
what we will, all we want most. — all that is truly Divine — 
must remain to us a darkness or a dream ? Let any man 
think in his heart, that what ought to rule his life, and raise 
him higher than his lower self, is a secret unknowable, and 
he loses the fear of doing wrong; — for how can he help it ? — 
and the hope of a brighter and better future ;: — for how shall 
he attain it ? Then, he sits down to wrap himself in cynical 
self-sufficingness. Inevitable ignorance is soon developed into 
intellectual Pessimism. The death of hope and fear, makes 
the man himself a moral Pessimist. Our conscience, sympathy, 
devotion, happiness in higher and in lower things alike, — if 
unstirred by vivid emotions, — must become dull and blunted. 
Next follows 

" The waveless calm, the slumber of the dead;"— 

a state of suspended animation, broken only by fierce stimu- 
lants — the galvanisms of our lower life. These are succeeded, 
in due course, by spasmodic susceptibilities, which demand at 
no distant day the anodyne and the narcotic. And— 

" Oh, that way madness lies! " — 

Therefore we repeat it, — and it cannot too often or too earnestly 
be repeated, — let no man excuse himself from the pursuit of 
practical truth (g) by any amount of speculative difficulty 

(g) Neither can it be too often repeated that practical trnth involves 
an enormous amount of speculative difficulty, and is received as the daily 
basis of human action in the face of doubts, which speculatively con- 
sidered are absolutely insoluble. There is (as will appear in Chapter IV.) 
reason to extend this remark beyond what is commonly called practical 
truth far into the realm of speculative knowledge, or to speak more 
exactly, of all knowledge whatsoever. Suppose,, for instance, the con- 
tinuity of our inward power of receiving sense-impressions, of knowing, 



CONDITIONS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 



173 



whatsoever. It would be a false optimism to say there is no 
difficulty in thinking truly ; — to represent its difficulties as 
trifles ; — or to forget the painful fact that they beset our age 
of cold erudite criticism, like pitfalls in the Valley of the 
Shadow of Death. But, must not all things really great and 
good be toilsome to men who are neither very good nor very 
great ? And have we not, every one of us, who tries to be 
good, our proper fields of hard yet repaying work ? The bee 
gathers honey where one idle schoolboy sees only thorns and 
briers — and where another sucks poison. 

In our days, Doubt is thorough. So thorough, that it soon 
ceases to be doubt, and the mind passes quickly from its dim 
twilight to a rayless blank. Mr. Herbert Spencer puts the 
case of Theology as follows (First Principles p. 43) : " Criti- 
cising the essential conceptions involved in the different orders 
of beliefs, we find no one of them to be logically defensible. 
Passing over the consideration of credibility, and confining 
ourselves to that of conceivability, we see that Atheism, Pan- 
theism, and Theism, when rigorously analysed, severally prove 
to be absolutely unthinkable." These three conceptions the 
writer does in fact analyse after his own fashion, — briefly 
first, pp. 30-36, — and further on argues the whole question 
in extenso. The result, of course, is that all three "beliefs" 
must finally be abandoned. What then becomes of the Abso- 
lute ground, or First Cause of all things ? Spencer is too 
clear-sighted not to acknow ledge that there must in reason be 
a First, and an Absolute. " M. Herbert Spencer," says Ea- 
vaisson,* " en proclamant la grande maxime que nous ne con- 
naissons rien que de relatif, a fait cepenclant une reserve 
importante. L'idee meme du relatif> remarque-t-il, ne saurait 
se comprendre sans celle a laquelle elle est opposee. Et nous 
concevons, en effet, au clela de toutes les relations de phe- 

and reasoning ; (our personal Identity) is a groundless belief ; — Suppose 
too that our sense-impressions are reflections from self-created shadows 
and not from objective realities ; — ivhere can any knowledge be truly 
subsistent save in that place of exile now generally termed ' ' the Unknow- 
able"? Compare Additional ISTotes A and B appended to this present 
Chapter. 

* La Philosophie en France. IX. p. 66. 



174 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



nomenes, l'absolu: c'est ce quelque chose qui est place au 
dela de toute science, et qui est l'objet de la religion ; quelque 
chose seulement de mysterieux, d'obscur, sur quoi on ne peut 
avoir, selon M. Spencer, aucune lumiere." The last negative 
clause is amply justified on p. 113 of "First Principles." 
"By continually seeking to know, and being continually 
thrown back with a deepened conviction of the impossibility 
of knowing, we may keep alive the consciousness that it is 
alike our highest wisdom and our highest duty. to regard that 
through which all things exist as The Unknowable." And this 
closing word becomes with Spencer, the constant name of a 
Power, the consciousness of which is " manifested to us 
through all phenomena." * 

Such a position, maintained by such a writer, has of course 
met with ample consideration. Mr. Huxley appears to have 
arrived at a somewhat similar conclusion. Of Religion he 
says,*f- " Arising, like all other kinds of knowledge, out of the 
action and interaction of man's mind, with that which is not 
man's mind, it has taken the intellectual coverings of Fetishism 
or Polytheism ; of Theism or Atheism ; of Superstition or 
Rationalism. With these, and their relative merits and 
demerits, I have nothing to do ; but this it is needful for my 
purpose to say, that if the religion of the present differs from 
that of the past, it is because the theology of the present has 
become more scientific than that of the past ; because it has 
not only renounced idols of wood and idols of stone, but begins 
to see the necessity of breaking in pieces the idols built up of 
books and traditions and fine-spun ecclesiastical cobwebs, and 
of cherishing the noblest and most human of man's emotions, 
by worship ' for the most part of the silent sort ' at the altar of 
the Unknown and Unknowable." 

Concerning this general idea (or negation of Idea) Mr. J. 
Martineau has made antagonistic observations, by way of 
criticism on Mr. Spencer's book. " To say," he writes,^ "that 

* First Principles, p. 108. 

t Lay Sermon delivered on Sunday, Jan. 7, 1866 ; in the collected 
vol. pp. 19, 20. 
% Essays I. p. 190. 



CONDITIONS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 175 



the First Cause is wholly removed from our apprehension is 
not simply a disclaimer of faculty on our part ; it is a charge 
of inability against the First Cause too. . . . And in the very 
act of declaring the First Cause incognizable, you do not 
permit it to remain unknown. For that only is unknown, of 
which you can neither affirm nor deny any predicate ; here 
you deny the power of self-disclosure to the c Absolute/ of 
which therefore something is known ; — viz., that nothing can 
be known." And again with much force,* "You cannot con- 
stitute a religion out of mystery alone, any more than out of 
knowledge alone; nor can you measure the relation of 
doctrines to humility and piety by the mere amount of 
conscious darkness which they leave. All worship, being 
directed to what is above us and transcends our comprehen- 
sion, stands in presence of a mystery. But not all that stands 
before a mystery is worship." (h) 

Mr. Mill (doing battle with another antagonist) denies every 
attribute claiming faith and worship, to the idea of a morally 
Unknoivable God. The passage occurs in his Examination of 
Hamilton, pp. 123-4. "If, instead of the 'glad tidings' that 
there exists a Being in whom all the excellences which the v 
highest human mind can conceive, exist in a degree incon- 
ceivable to us, I am informed that the world is ruled by a 
being whose attributes are infinite, but what they are we 
cannot learn, nor what are the principles of his government, 
except that ' the highest human morality which we are 
capable of conceiving ' does not sanction them ; convince me 
of it, and I will bear my fate as I may. But when I am told 
that I must believe this, and at the same time call this being 
by the names which express and affirm the highest human 
morality, I say in plain terms that I will not. Whatever 
power such a being may have over me, there is one thing 

* Ibid. p. 211. 

(h) Mr. Herbert Spencer has been freely criticized by Americans, in 
part as not being sufficiently thorough— in part as being untrue to his 
own position. A few quotations will be found in Additional Note F, on 
"The Unknowable." 



176 PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



which he shall not do : he shall not compel me to worship 
him." (i) 

Now, suppose that instead of siding on this occasion with 
Mill and Martineau, we were to accept the alternative offered 
by Spencer and Huxley. Would this surrender of Natural 
Theology — or rather of all Theology— necessitate in reason 
any other vast surrender also ? We have already answered in 
the affirmative. The surrender would penetrate every field 
of knowledge and of thought. We have already shewn this. 
For, the thread binding the present section into a connected 
whole runs thus : Survey the conditions of interrogating, first, 
nature ; secondly, our own highest nature ; next, our senses ; 
finally, our consciousness ; and add to them the enormous 
difficulties which attend every step taken in compliance with 
those indispensable conditions. Indispensable, that is, to our 
knowing anything, of any sort, in any way whatsoever. You 
have, then, no right to isolate Theism. It is false logic, to 
speak of the intellectual difficulties attaching to our appre- 
hension of the Deity, as if they were substantial objections. 
In this respect, Theism stands within the same category of 
speculative perplexity, and reasonable necessity, as do other 
supreme truths.* 

Put the case to the judgment of Reason, once for all. If we 
agreed to accept Herbert Spencer's position, we should consent 
to deny that anything can be known of an Absolute. And 
the denial would proceed upon this maxim : — " whatsoever is 
inexplicable is also unknowable." Consider, now, what other 

(i) The paragraph, taken in its entireness, is pervaded with the vivid 
sense of a Moral Law which can neither change nor perish — a Law at 
once human and Divine. This strong protest is both in thought and 
expression a complete contrast to the ordinary tone of Mr. Mill's dis- 
quisitions, attempered as they generally are between benevolence and 
expediency. Instead of pondering the Utilities of a race which, com- 
paratively speaking, began to exist yesterday, it appeals with decisive 
sternness, once and for ever, to the Immutable and the Absolute. It 
reminds one of a torch-bearing Prometheus pitted against the selfish 
despot of a new and morally enfeebled Olympus. See Additional Note G. 

* This sentence contains two propositions ; the question of speculative 
perplexity has been treated in this Chapter — that of reasonable necessity 
is reserved for our next. 



CONDITIONS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 177 



ultimate truths would fall into the same tomb-like Category. 
We must silence all human utterance respecting all first 
grounds ; — our own individuality ; — and every object of reason 
which becomes inconceivable, when we attempt to define it 
by the processes of ordinary logic. All utterance respecting 
our own senses and sensations ; — our own existence, as beings 
distinct from a world of beings and things really existing 
outside us. 

In fine, we could never know that we know either anything 
or nothing; for, we should have silenced the deepest of all 
utterances, — the one upon which all truth and reason depend. 
We should have relegated our Mind along with our God, to 
the same abysmal gulf of the Unknowable. Henceforth, we 
could predicate of Mind nothing essential to purposes of 
knowledge, — and least of all essentials, — Veracity. 

Mr. Mill closes his laborious endeavours to explain our 
natural belief in Mind as follows : " The truth is, that we are 
here face to face with that final inexplicability, at which, as 
Sir W. Hamilton observes, we inevitably arrive when we 
reach ultimate facts ; and in general, one mode of stating it 
only appears more incomprehensible than another, because the 
whole of human language is accommodated to the one, and is 
so incongruous with the other, that it cannot be expressed in 
any terms which do not deny its truth. The real stumbling- 
block is perhaps not in any theory of the fact, but in the fact 
itself. The true incomprehensibility perhaps is, that some- 
thing which has ceased, or is not yet in existence, can still be 
in a manner, present : that a series of feelings, the infinitely 
greater part of which is past or future, can be gathered up, as 
it were, into a single present conception, accompanied by a 
belief of reality. I think, by far the wisest thing we can do, 
is to accept the inexplicable fact, without any theory of how 
it takes place ; and when we are obliged to speak of it in 
terms which assume a theory, to use them with a reservation 
as to their meaning." * Two pages further he ingenuously 
adds : " I do not profess to have adequately accounted for the 
belief in Mind." In other words, the perplexities remain on 
* On Hamilton, p. 242. 



178 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



Mill's system as they do on all systems. But the Belief and 
the Fact remain likewise. 

It is the same with our belief of other ultimate facts. We 
live an individual life, — we know not what. We see and 
perceive, — we know not how. Yet such are the facts, and we 
thoroughly believe and act upon them. 

The pivot on which these and similar beliefs turn is a 
subject of the greatest interest and importance. On this same 
pivot turns our primary affirmative Argument for Natural 
Theism. To establish it will be the purpose of the next 
Chapter, and a succession of affirmative arguments, separate 
but convergent, will occupy the remainder of this Essay. 

Corollary : — If any reader of these pages has felt the 
fascination of some one among the many materializing 
hypotheses now in vogue, let him remember that, in fair 
debate, Materialism can never have the slightest chance 
against Idealism. 

All materializing theories labour under an enormous weight 
of unverified postulates. They set out from neither the most 
natural, nor yet the surest, sources of our knowledge. 
Naturally, we start from self-ness, and learn to put outer 
things and beings in opposition to our own primary self- 
consciousness. 

In after life, when we ask why we are sure of any kind of 
knowledge ; the primary truths upon which all our reasonings 
proceed, are always the presentations of our own mind. 

If we proceed to analyse accepted relativities, we soon per- 
ceive that Mind enters into our facts, and also into our sense- 
presentations. In particular, an examination of the noblest 
of all senses — the sense of sight — will convince any careful 
analyst that such is undeniably the case. The reader may 
recal Mr. Mill's words,* — "I do not believe that the real 
externality to us of anything, except other minds, is capable 
of proof." "For ourselves," says Professor Fraser, "we can 
conceive only — (1) An externality to our present and transient 
experience in our own possible experience past and future, 

* Mill on Hamilton, p. 232, note. 



CONDITIONS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 



179 



and (2) An externality to our own conscious experience, in 
the contemporaneous, as well as in the past or future 
experience of other mincls."* In this view Mr. Mill (who 
quotes Fraser), entirely acquiesces, and in this same spirit he 
writes, " Matter may be defined, a Permanent Possibility of 
Sensation; "f — and adds that he can accept no other definition. 

Whether the reader can or cannot define Matter otherwise ; 
he will, at all events, perceive that the Materialist assumes as 
his primary postulate, that which is by no means the primary 
fact accepted by Mankind, He starts with taking Matter for 
granted ; — but, if he inquires, he will discover that Matter is 
known to him in the second place only ; he really first knew 
Mind. When he questions sensation, or consciousness, he 
questions Mind ; and, throughout his whole life, theoretical as 
well as practical, Mind is nearer to him, and more strongly 
evidenced, than any other " Possibility " whatsoever. 

Such, then, is the first heavy burden of unauthorized 
postulation, which the Materialist's theory binds upon him. 
But, in the task of postulating without authority from 
Nature, it seems impossible to stop short. Mind, being an 
absolute necessity, must be got in some way — (from Matter 
of course) — evolved, correlated, secreted. No account is given 
hoiv Matter could have been thus transformed and glorified. 
Yet, in default of such account, it is impossible to divine why 
that primary postulate ever existed at all. 

The highest attenuation of Matter can no more help to 
explain Life or Mind, than to say that brain, (deprived of its 
vitality,) is composed of cerebrin, lecythin, and cholesterin, 
explains its sensibility, and other vital and intellectual endow- 
ments. And we encounter the same unbridged gulf at every 
turn of the materialistic hypothesis. There is a wide gap 
between the inorganic world and all organisms, vegetable or 
animal. We are, however, told that when certain inorganic 
elements are combined, under certain conditions, they form 
protoplasm, — a substance manifesting phenomena of vitality. 
The elements are known, — the conditions are unknown, — and 
until protoplasm has been produced by a chemical experi- 
* Ibid. p. 233, note. f Ibid. p. 227. 



180 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



menter, instead of within a living laboratory, we may safely 
believe that the unknown conditions form the essential cause 
of the production. And we are given to understand by 
Professor Huxley,* that on this subject speculation has been 
premature. 

The gap between Body and Mind is wider still. Body has 
its known properties, — measurable figure, weight, and other 
like specialties. Mind has its properties also, — such as 
intelligence, emotion, reason, will. Thinking has never been 
shown to be a property of Body ; nor have weight and 
measure been applied to Mind. The laws of each differ as 
decisively as their properties. Body obeys gravitation, 
cohesion, and chemical affinity. Mind has its laws of reason- 
ing, mathematically, logically, analogically. Now, what 
resemblance is here visible ? "f* Body cannot compel Will, — 
but is moved by it; and there is no more verisimilitude 
known to us of Body to "Will, than there exists between the 
noble thought of a high-souled Man and the paving-stone he 
walks upon. The foregoing is, as every honest materialist 
will acknowledge, but a slight specimen of the many 
difficulties of Materialism. So little does any materializing 
process of " resolution " really resolve anything, that any — 
even the most plausible — can only be pronounced an abortive 
attempt to bring something near and familiar to us, out of 
something unknowably remote. 

The materialist's allegation is generally, that he wishes to 
accept as little as possible. But the accusation of the natural 
Theologian against Materialism, is that it accepts far too 
much. Mind being a necessary and indispensable fact, the 
one fact underlying all other facts, — whoever is bent on 

* British Association Report, 1870. lxxvii. lxxxiv. 

f The remark above made respecting a "living laboratory" will be 
readily understood by every one who remembers the great mistakes 
committed, some years ago, in treating the stomach as a mere chemical 
workshop ; — forgetful of its all-important endowment, — vitality. That 
oversight has been alluded to here because it may yield a lesson to 
Psychologists ; for may not a far higher kind of endowment in like manner 
be forgotten when men materialize the principles one and all on which 
is conditioned the transforming power of mental assimilation '? 



CONDITIONS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 181 



simplifying his beliefs, had better begin by believing in his 
own Soul. And if further bent on viewing all things as 
" resolvable/' his surest wisdom will be to resolve Matter into 
Mind. It is really the easier alternative, and has a double 
merit, — it starts from the best-known fact, and it satisfies 
his desire for " simplification," 

At all events, the consequences resulting from Materialism, 
are too serious to permit a disregard of Probability. We 
must, surely, find and follow the very best guide we can : — 

" These are no school-points ; nice philosophy 
May tolerate unlikely arguments, 
But heaven admits no jests." 

Mr. Huxley,* who sees advantages (simplicity and unifica- 
tion) in employing a materialistic terminology, adds the very 
striking caution — " But the man of science, who, forgetting the 
limits of philosophical inquiry, slides from these " (material- 
istic) "formulae and symbols into what is commonly under- 
stood by materialism, seems to me to place himself on a level 
with the mathematician, who should mistake the x's and y's, 
with which he works his problems, for real entities — and with 
this further disadvantage, as compared with the mathema- 
tician, that the blunders of the latter are of no practical con- 
sequence, while the errors of systematic materialism may 
paralyse the energies and destroy the beauty of a life." 

The words italicized are remarkable. The materializing 
f aeons de-parler do not embody a knowledge of "real entities" 
after all. And such is the language of one f who stands in the 
foremost rank of European Biologists. 

* Lay Sermons, p. 160. 

f And of more than one as we shall see hereafter. Its point will be 
best understood upon a perusal of Additional Notes F and L 



ADDITIONAL NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO 
CHAPTER III. 



A. — ACCOUNT OF SOME THEORIES RESPECTING OUR 
PERSONAL IDENTITY. 

In a sentence worthy of the pen of Glanvill or of Sir T. Browne, 
Locke remarked " The Ideas, as well as Children of our Youth, often 
die before us : And our Minds represent to us those Tombs, to which 
we are approaching ; where, though the Brass and Marble remain, 
yet the Inscriptions are effaced by Time, and the Imagery moulders 
away. The Pictures drawn in our Minds, are laid in fading Colours, 
and if not sometimes refreshed, -vanish and disappear." On Reten- 
tion, B. II., chap. x. 5. 

This truly human feeling did not hinder Locke from writing (chap, 
xxvii.) on the subject of Self-ness in a manner which appeared to 
imply that Consciousness, or Consciousness plus Memory " made " 
Personal Identity ; — or to use Reid's words "whatever hath the 
consciousness of present and past actions, is the same person to 
whom they belong." 

Bishop Butler's strictures on the topic are known to most students : 
but, as Sir William Hamilton observes (Foot-note on Reid, pp. 850, 
351), "Long before Butler, to whom the merit is usually ascribed, 
Locke's doctrine of Personal Identity had been attacked and refuted. 
This was done even by his earliest critic, John Sergeant, whose 
words, as he is an author wholly unknown to all historians of 
philosophy, and his works of the rarest, I shall quote. He thus 
argues : — * The former distinction forelaid, he (Locke) proceeds to 
make personal identity in man to consist in the consciousness that we 
are the same thinking thing in different times and places. He proves 
it, because consciousness is inseparable from thinking, and, as it 
seems to him, essential to it. . . . But, to speak to the point : Con- 
sciousness of any action or other accident we have now, or have had, 
is nothing but our knowledge that it belonged to us ; and, since we 
both agree that we have no innate knowledges, it follows, that all, 
both actual and habitual knowledges, which we have, are acquired or 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER III. 



183 



accidental to the subject or knower. Wherefore the man, or that 
thing which is to be the knower, must have had individuality or per- 
sonality, from other principles, antecedently to this knowledge, called 
consciousness : and, consequently, he will retain his identity, or continue 
the same man, or [which is equivalent) the same person, as long as he 
has those individuating principles. ... It being then most evident, 
that a man must be the same, ere he can know or be conscious that he 
is the same, all his laborious descants and extravagant consequences 
which are built upon this supposition, that consciousness individuates 
the person, can need no farther refutation.' 

" The same objection was also made by Leibnitz in his strictures 
on Locke's Essay. ... 

" For the best criticism of Locke's doctrine of Personal Identity, 
I may, however, refer the reader to M. Cousin's ' Cours de 
Philosophie. 1 " * 

One of Locke's arguments is worthy of attention from its oddity. 
He says (chap, xxvii. 20), " But if it be possible for the same Man 
to have distinct incommunicable Consciousnesses at different Times, 
it is past doubt the same Man would at different Times make different 
Persons ; which, we see, is the Sense of Mankind in the solemnest 
Declaration of their Opinions, Human Laws not punishing the Mad 
Man for the Sober Man's Actions, nor the Sober Man for what the 
Mad Man did, thereby making them two Persons ; which is some- 
what explained by our Way of speaking in English, when we say, 
such a one is not himself, or is besides himself-, in which Phrases it is 
insinuated, as if those who now, or at least, first used them, thought 
that Self was changed, the self same Person was no longer in that 
Man." 

It appears strange that so acute a writer should not have per- 
ceived the true consequences to be deduced from his observation. 
We never really treat a man who goes mad as becoming another 
personage. But if he has lost his self-control from causes by himself 
uncontrollable, we do not punish his criminalities, and we do divest 
him of his social powers; he can neither vote for Parliament, 
bequeath property, nor do many other acts, during the period of his 
affliction. But we use all means for his cure, and rejoice at his 
return to health and society. If a man "beside himself" were " a 
different person," then "tipsy he " would certainly not be "ipse he." 
— Yet the father of ethical science decided that the criminal drunkard 
deserves double meed of punishment. 

To Locke's theory of Personal Identity Hamilton dedicates one 
more note. He gives (Reid, p. 353), an extract from Lord Karnes 



184 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



[Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion), who 
pronounces his own opinion and appends some unpublished remarks 
of Dr. Eeid. " Mr. Locke, writing on personal identity, has fallen 
short of his usual accuracy. He inadvertently jumbles together the 
identity that is nature's work, with our knowledge of it. Nay, he 
expresses himself sometimes as if identity had no other foundation 
than that knowledge. I am favoured by Dr. Keid with the following 
thoughts on personal identity : — 

" ' All men agree that personality is indivisible ; a part of a person 
is an absurdity. A man who loses his estate, his health, an arm, or 
a leg, continues still to be the same person. My personal identity, 
therefore, is the continued existence of that indivisible thing which 
I call myself. I am not thought; I am not action ; I am not feeling; 
but I think, and act, and feel. Thoughts, actions, feelings, change 
every moment ; but self, to which they belong, is permanent. If it 
be asked how I know that it is permanent, the answer is, that I 
know it from memory. Everything I remember to have seen, or 
heard, or done, or suffered, convinces me that I existed at the time 
remembered. But, though it is from memory that I have the 
knowledge of my personal identity, yet personal identity must exist 
in nature, independent of memory ; otherwise, I should only be the 
same person as far as my memory serves me ; and what would 
become of my existence during the intervals wherein my memory has 
failed me ? My remembrance of any of my actions does not make 
me to be the person who did the action, but only makes me know 
that I was the person who did it. And yet it was Mr. Locke's 
opinion, that my remembrance of an action is what makes me to be 
the person who did it ; a pregnant instance that even men of the 
greatest genius may sometimes fall into an absurdity. Is it not an 
obvious corollary, from Mr. Locke's opinion, that he never was born? 
He could not remember his birth ; and, therefore, was not the person 
born at such a place and at such a time.' " 

When we come to Hume, the case is considerably altered. He 
opens the question after his own manner by asking how the fact 
commonly stated can be ; and using the difficulty of explaining this 
"how" as a sufficient objection against the fact asserted. "There 
are some philosophers," he writes [Treatise, B. I., Part iv., Sect. 6), 
"who imagine we are every moment intimately conscious of what 
we call our self; that we feel its existence and its continuance in 
existence ; and are certain, beyond the evidence of a demonstration, 
both of its perfect identity and simplicity. . . . 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER III. 185 



"Unluckily all these positive assertions are contrary to that very 
experience, which is pleaded for them, nor have we any idea of self, 
after the manner it is here explained. For from what impression 
could this idea be derived ? ... If any impression gives rise to the 
idea of self, that impression must continue invariably the same, 
through the whole course of our lives ; since self is supposed to 
exist after that manner. But there is no impression constant and 
invariable. Pain and pleasure, grief and joy, passions and sensations 
succeed each other, and never all exist at the same time. It cannot 
therefore be from any of these impressions, or from any other, that 
the idea of self is derived ; and consequently there is no such idea. 

. . . For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call 
myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of 
heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I 
never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never 
can observe anything but the perception. . . . The mind is a kind 
of theatre, where several perceptions successively make their appear- 
ance ; pass, re-pass, glide away, and mingle in an infinite variety of 
postures and situations. There is properly no simplicity in it at one 
time, nor identity in different ; whatever natural propension we may 
have to imagine that simplicity and identity. The comparison of the 
theatre must not mislead us. They are the successive perceptions 
only, that constitute the mind ; nor have we the most distant notion 
of the place, where these scenes are represented, or of the materials, 
of which it is composed." 

It is curious that Hume wishing to represent Mind as a melting 
mist of successive perceptions, should be driven into the use of a 
word which implied a something continuing and permanent as 
affording the stage on which all passing scenes called " impressions " 
are enacted. 

Hume next discusses the laws of association ; and then proceeds 
(same Section sub fin.) "As memory alone acquaints us with the 
continuance and extent of this succession of perceptions, 'tis to be 
considered, upon that account chiefly, as the source of personal 
identity. Had we no memory, we never should have any notion of 
causation, nor consequently of that chain of causes and effects, which 
constitute our self or person. But having once acquired this notion of 
causation from the memory, we can extend the same chain of causes, 
and consequently the identity of our persons beyond our memory, 
and can comprehend times, and circumstances, and actions, which 
we have entirely forgot, but suppose in general to have existed. For 
how few of our past actions are there, of which we have any 



186 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



memory ? "Who can tell me, for instance, what were his thoughts 
and actions on the first of January, 1715, the eleventh of March, 
1719, and the third of August, 1733 ? Or will he affirm, because he 
has entirely forgot the incidents of these days, that the present self is 
not the same person with the self of that time ; and by that means 
overturn all the most established notions of personal identity ? In 
this view therefore memory does not so much produce as discover 
personal identity, by shewing us the relation of cause and effect 
among our different perceptions. 'Twill be incumbent on those 
who affirm that memory produces entirely our personal identity, 
to give a reason why we can thus extend our identity beyond our 
memory. 

" The whole of this doctrine leads us to a conclusion, which is of 
great importance in the present affair, viz., that all the nice and 
subtile questions concerning personal identity can never possibly be 
decided, and are to be regarded rather as grammatical than as philo- 
sophical difficulties. Identity depends on the relations of ideas ; and 
these relations produce identity, by means of that easy transition they 
occasion. But as the relations, and the easiness of the transition 
may diminish by insensible degrees, we have no just standard by 
which we can decide any dispute concerning the time, when they 
acquire or lose a title to the name of identity. All the disputes con- 
cerning the identity of connected objects are merely verbal, except so 
far as the relation of parts gives rise to some fiction or imaginary 
principle of union, as we have already observed." 

If any one feels dissatisfied with these conclusions our author is 
ready with his apology- — " The intense view of these manifold contra- 
dictions and imperfections in human reason has so wrought upon me, 
and heated my brain, that I am ready to reject all belief and 
reasoning, and can look upon no opinion even as more probable or 
likely than another. "Where am I, or what ? From what causes do 
I derive my existence, and to what condition shall I return ? Whose 
favour shall I court, and whose anger must I dread ? "What beings 
surround me ? and on whom have I any influence, or who have any 
influence on me ? I am confounded with all these questions, and 
begin to fancy myself in the most deplorable condition imaginable, 
environed with the deepest darkness, and utterly deprived of the use 
of every member and faculty. 

"Most fortunately it happens, that since reason is incapable of 
dispelling these clouds, nature herself suffices to that purpose, and 
cures me of this philosophical melancholy and delirium, either by 
relaxing this bent of mind, or by some avocation, and lively impres- 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER III. 187 



sion of my senses, which obliterate all these chimeras. I dine, I play 
a game of back-gammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends ; 
and when after three or four hours' amusement, I would return to 
these speculations, they appear so cold, and strained, and ridiculous, 
that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther." 
(Part iv., Section 7.) 

Is not this good-humoured ? Is it not a piece of pleasant 
bantering, to be equalled only by certain French philosophers ? The 
real conclusion, however, winds up his First Book and runs as 
follows: — " A true sceptic will be diffident of his philosophical 
doubts, as well as of his philosophical conviction ; and will never 
refuse any innocent satisfaction, which offers itself, upon account of 
either of them. 

' ' Nor is it only proper Ave should in general indulge our inclina- 
tion in the most elaborate philosophical researches, notwithstanding 
our sceptical principles, but also that we should yield (sic) to that 
propensity, which inclines us to be positive and certain in -particular 
points, according to the light, in which we survey them in any 
particular instant. "lis easier to forbear all examination and inquiry, 
than to check ourselves in so natural a propensity, and guard against 
that assurance, which always arises from an exact and full survey of 
an object. On such an occasion we are apt not only to forget our 
scepticism, but even our modesty too ; and make use of such terms 
as these, 'tis evident, 'tis certain, 'tis undeniable; which a due 
deference to the public ought, perhaps, to prevent. I may have 
fallen into this fault after the example of others ; but I here enter a 
caveat against any objections, which may be offered on that head ; 
and declare that such expressions were extorted from me by the 
present view of the object, and imply no dogmatical spirit, nor 
conceited idea of my own judgment, which are sentiments that I am 
sensible can become nobody, and a sceptic still less than any other.* 

It is obvious to remark that no amount of easiness would maintain 
most minds in this balanced position of the pleasant know-nothing 
man. The general tendency would be to acknowledge the negative 
side alone. And it would be well if an absence of serious convictions, 
seriously asserted, and acted on, did not gradually weaken the sense 
of Responsibility by making Truth appear indifferent because un- 
attainable. 

We, however, are just now more concerned with two other equally 

* All these quotations will be found between pp. 332 and 360 of the Treatise. 
Ed. 1817. 



188 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



obvious comments. One, that Hume appears to take for granted the 
point at issue. Suppose it for argument's sake to be true that 
impressions and ideas (as described by him) make up our whole 
ordinary consciousness ; does this shew that no latent power or 
entity exists by which we become conscious of those passing trains ? 
When impressed by colours, are we conscious of an optic nerve, 
retina, crystalline lens and other instrumental powers of vision? 
Can we, if we try, perceive by sense the nerve-currents brainwards, 
or the sensory which receives and compares them ? In both cases 
(eye and inward eye) pathology affords an evidence of consciousness 
which happy health refuses us. The brainsick sense sees colours and 
phantoms which are not— the disordered mind dwells on impressions 
and ideas absolutely unreal, and acts on them as stern realities. 
And thus our own purely subjective states reveal to us our own 
subjectivity. 'Tis so in fevers, in lunacies, in vices — 'tis so to the 
drowning or the desperate man. These mournful changes which 
pass over ourselves issue from an interior activity of self-ness and 
form one of its commonest verifications. 

This first comment admits of extension. If we endeavour to 
introduce experiment (as well as experience) into Mental Science, 
must we not ask a previous question : — Shall this or that experiment 
be tried ? In other words, by what inner law shall we shape our 
inquiries so as to gain useful facts for our intended induction ? — Nay, 
we may further ask : What inner Being is to settle the questions, 
criticize them, and judge the final issue ? And if we seem to see our 
way on these topics, we may feel pretty sure that whenever our 
psychology comes to practical trial, we proceed as being sure of a 
Self, more or less self-conscious of Self, and are quite confident that 
its self-ness will continue during the whole time of our investigations. 

Our second comment may be simply summed, but the considera- 
tion given to it ought to be minute and careful. Suppose instead of 
successive perceptions, impressions, or ideas, we substitute a succes- 
sion of phenomena, and then apply to them Hume's line of thought, 
we have an acute statement of the modern teachings which relegate 
the noblest part of our Nature, our reasonings and our beliefs to the 
territory of the Unknowable. In a word, all knowledge thus seems 
to be gained by " looking on," none by " looking in." Truth within 
ourselves especially if it manifests a Truth above ourselves is made 
to appear hopeless. And so far does the process of Elimination 
extend, that principles involved even in our "looking on" must not 
be drawn oat of their latency, for fear they should become accepted 
parts of knowledge. Let any thinker repeat with this substitution 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER III. 



189 



the Personal Identity argument in his own mind, and he will soon 
see what a shadow is cast over an infinitely wider world of thought.* 

The same process of repetition ought in fairness to produce 
another effect. Are not these philosophic arguticB, these Pyrrhonic 
subtilties closely akin to the difficulties raised against all first 
principles ; and more particularly all Theistic principles ? But does 
anyhody on their account doubt his own Self-ness or Identity? Or does 
any one refuse to act on the supposition of otherness, and outerness, or 
ignore his world of fellow-men and hard objectivities which press 
upon him from every side ? Why then should anybody ignore on 
their account the great First-Cause ? 

In the text of Chapter III. the elements of our reasonable belief in 
our own Personal self-ness and sameness have been shortly men- 
tioned ; — of such work-day belief, that is to say, as suffices for 
actual life, and gains from it, and throughout it, a perpetual verifica- 
tion. If any one wishes to go deeper than this, he must inquire upon 
what evidence first principles are accepted by reasoning men ; what 
difficulties attach to such principles ; and under what conditions these 
difficulties are held to be nugatory. This inquiry is troublesome but 
promises real satisfaction. "We have not, therefore, declined it, as 
may be seen in the ensuing Chapter. One fact is manifest before- 
hand — that whatever evidence is presupposed valid by those first 
principles of every -day knowledge, may be safely presupposed, 
accepted, and reasoned upon, in the ground-work of Natural 
Theology. 

It was Hume's object to push his scepticism to its most extreme 
verge. Thus pushed, it " so wrought upon " him that he was 
"ready to reject all belief and reasoning" till a return to every-day 
life made his speculations appear in his own eyes "cold and strained 
and ridiculous." What then was the inference Hume himself in- 
tended ? Which was really groundless — every-day belief or scepti- 
cism ? Will his useful dilemma induce the reader to receive Kant's 
excuse for the celebrated doubter, when he bids us let the man alone 
because he is but trying the strength of human reason ? At all 
events, Hume's way of stating his case seems to justify the old 
remark, that, while Superstition is refuted by Reason, Nature itself 
refutes the Sceptic. 

* Compare Mr. Green's Introduction to Hume's Treatise on Human 
Nature, Yol. I., pp. 263, seq., where he discusses the bearing of this 
subject upon Hume's doctrine of Cause and Effect. 



190 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



B. — EXTRACTS FROM POPULAR LECTURES, BY PRO- 
FESSOR HELMHOLTZ, ON THE RECENT PROGRESS 
OF THE THEORY OF VISION. 

" If now we compare the eye with other optical instruments, we 
observe the advantage it has over them in its very large field of vision. 
This for each eye separately is 160° (nearly two right angles) laterally, 
and 120° vertically, and for both together somewhat more than two 
right angles from right to left. The field of view of instruments 
made by art is usually very small, and becomes smaller with the 
increased size of the image. 

" But we must also admit, that we are accustomed to expect in 
these instruments complete precision of the image in its entire extent, 
while it is only necessary for the image on the retina to be exact 
over a very small surface, namely, that of the yellow spot. The 
diameter of the central pit corresponds in the field of vision to an 
angular magnitude which can be covered by the nail of one's fore- 
finger when the hand is stretched out as far as possible. In this 
small part of the field our power of vision is so accurate that it can 
distinguish the distance between two points, of only one minute angular 
magnitude, i.e. a distance equal to the sixtieth part of the diameter 
of the finger-nail. This distance corresponds to the width of one of 
the cones of the retina. All the other parts of the retinal image are 
seen imperfectly, and the more so the nearer to the limit of the retina 
they fall. So that the image which we receive by the eye is like a 
picture, minutely and elaborately finished in the centre, but only 
roughly sketched in at the borders. But although at each instant we 
only see a very small part of the field of vision accurately, we see 
this in combination with what surrounds it, and enough of this outer 
and larger part of the field, to notice any striking object, and particu- 
larly any change that takes place in it. All of this is unattainable in 
a telescope. 

"But if the objects are too small, we cannot discern them at all 
with the greater part of the retina. 

' When, lost in boundless blue on high, 
The lark pours forth his thrilling song,' 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER III. 191 



the t ethereal minstrel ' is lost until we can bring her image to a focus 
upon the central pit of our retina. Then only are we able to see her. 

" To look at anything means to place the eye in such a position that 
the image of the object falls on the small region of perfectly clear 
vision. This we may call direct vision, applying the term indirect to 
that exercised with the lateral parts of the retina — indeed with all 
except the yellow spot. 

" The defects which result from the inexactness of vision and the 
smaller number of cones in the greater part of the' retina are compen- 
sated by the rapidity with which we can turn the eye to one point 
after another of the field of vision, and it is this rapidity of move- 
ment which really constitutes the chief advantage of the eye over 
other optical instruments 

" A great part of the importance of the eye as an organ of expres- 
sion depends on the same fact ; for the movements of the eyeball — its 
glances — are among the most direct signs of the movement of the 
attention, of the movements of the mind, of the person who is looking 
at us." Popular Lectures on Scientific Subjects, pp. 212-214. 

The great German next proceeds to catalogue some principal defects 
of the Eye. 1. Chromatic aberration connected with 2. spherical 
aberration and defective centering of the cornea and lens, together 
producing the imperfection known as astigmatism, and 3. irregular 
radiation round the images of illuminated points. "Now," adds 
Helmholtz, " it is not too much to say that if an optician wanted 
to sell me an instrument which had all these defects, I should think 
myself quite justified in blaming his carelessness in the strongest 
terms, and giving him back his instrument. Of course, I shall not do 
this with my eyes, and shall be only too glad to keep them as long as 
I can — defects and all. Still, the fact that, however bad they may be, 
I can get no others, does not at all diminish their defects, so long as 
I maintain the narrow but indisputable position of a critic on purely 
optical grounds." (p. 219.) 

He then goes on to other faults. 4. Defective transparency. 5. 
Floating corpuscules (Muscse Volitantes). 6. The "blind spot " with 
other gaps in the field of vision. " So much," he concludes, "for 
the physical properties of the Eye. If I am asked why I have spent 
so much time in explaining its imperfection to my readers, I answer, 
as I said at first, that I have not done so in order to depreciate the 
performances of this wonderful organ, or to dimmish our admiration 
of its construction. It was my object to make the reader understand, 
at the first step of our inquiry, that it is not any mechanical perfec- 
tion of the organs of our senses which secures for us such wonder- 



192 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



fully true and exact impressions of the outer world. The next section 
of this inquiry will introduce much bolder and more paradoxical con- 
clusions than any I have yet stated. We have now seen that the eye 
in itself is not by any means so complete an optical instrument as it 
first appears : its extraordinary value depends upon the way in which 

we use it : its perfection is practical, not absolute Wherever 

we scrutinise the construction of physiological organs, we find the 
same character of practical adaptation to the wants of the organism ; 
although, perhaps, there is no instance which we can follow out so 
minutely as that of the eye. 

" For the eye has every possible defect that can be found in an 
optical instrument, and even some which are peculiar to itself ; but 
they are all so counteracted, that the inexactness of the image which 
results from their presence very little exceeds, under ordinary con- 
ditions of illumination, the limits which are set to the delicacy of 
sensation by the dimensions of the retinal cones 

" The adaptation of the eye to its function is, therefore, most 
complete, and is seen in the very limits which are set to its defects. 
Here the result which may be reached by innumerable generations 
working under the Darwinian law of inheritance, coincides with what 
the wisest Wisdom may have devised beforehand. A sensible man 
will not cut firewood with a razor, and so we may assume that each 
step in the elaboration of the eye must have made the organ more 
vulnerable and more slow in its development. We must also bear in 
mind that soft, watery animal textures must always be unfavourable 
and difficult material for an instrument of the mind. . . . 

" But, apparently, we are not yet come much nearer to under- 
standing sight. We have only made one step : we have learnt how 
the optical arrangement of the eye renders it possible to separate the 
rays of light which come in from all parts of the field of vision, and 
to bring together again all those that have proceeded from a single 
point, so that they may produce their effect upon a single fibre of the 
optic nerve. 

" Let us see, therefore, how much we know of the sensations of 
the eye, and how far this will bring us towards the solution of the 
problem." P. 226, seq. 

From the Professor's mention of "much bolder and more para- 
doxical conclusions," the final result of his next inquiry may be anti- 
cipated. Sensation is so far from making evident the truth of our 
visual knowledge that it increases our perplexities tenfold. " The 
inaccuracies," he tells us, " and imperfections of the eye as an optical 
instrument, and those which belong to the image on the retina, now 



ADDITIONAL XOTES TO CHAPTER III. 193 



appear insignificant in comparison with the incongruities which we 
have met with in the field of sensation. One might almost believe 
that Nature had here contradicted herself on purpose, in order to 
destroy any dream of a pre-existing harmony between the outer and 
the inner world. 

' - And what progress have we made in our task of explaining Sight '? 
It might seem that we are farther oft' than ever ; the riddle only more 
complicated, and less hope than ever of finding out the answer. The 
reader may perhaps feel inclined to reproach Science with only knowing 
how to break up with fruitless criticism the fair world presented to us 
by our senses, in order to annihilate the fragments." (p. 269.) 

How triumphant does Idealism now appear ! How little trust- 
worthy that boasted sense of which mankind have constantly said, 
" seeing is believing," although an apostle and philosophers innumer- 
able have put the two in opposition ! 

Perhaps, however, instead of leading to a "triumph of Idealism," 
the paradoxes and incongruities — in a word, the vast accumulation of 
the Unknowable — belonging to eyesight considered as a Sensation, 
must be allowed to land us on the shore of afar-stretching Scepticism 
illimitable to the mind's eye. And this seems to be the eminent 
writer's own final opinion.* So, too, it will always appear when the 
case is fairly argued out ; and that for the reasons adduced in our 
text. The course of argument there pursued was adopted before the 
Professor's book came to hand ; but we have now added some extracts 
from his pages in the shape of footnotes, and have given references to 
other interesting topics touched upon by him. 

For our purpose, however, it is necessary in some degree to dis- 
regard the variety of those topics, and fix our attention upon the 
conclusive issue. It is plain, that respecting our senses, as well as 
our other primary sources of information, the limits of what we can 
completely explain are very narrow. Yet each for himself and all of 
us for our race must needs every day accept and act upon this limited 
* He sums up in the words of Goethe, thus given in the translation of his 
lectures from which we have quoted — 
" Woe ! woe ! 

Thou hast destroyed 

The beautiful world 

"With powerful fist ; 

In ruin 'tis hurled. 

By the blow of a demigod shattered. 

The scattered 

Fragments into the void we carry, 
Deploring 

The beautv perished bevond restoring." 

13 



194 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



and imperfect kind of knowledge about what most essentially concerns 
our actions as well as our speculations. 

Several strong examples of such incompleteness are given by Helm- 
holtz in his scientific inquiry into the rationale of the visual sense- 
impressions. We observe, for instance, in his chapter on Sensation 
(p. 236 seq.) that all light-waves are the same in kind of movement, 
but differ in size as widely as the ripples on a sea-beach (round which 
happy children play) differ from the vast Atlantic ship-engulfing billows 
sixty or a hundred feet apart. All these undulations are similar in 
respect of reflection, refraction, interference, diffraction, and polarisa- 
tion, as well as in their production of heat.* Now, it is the interpre- 
tation of such movements into its own language by which our eye 
gives us the sensation of colour. Yet this power of interpretation is 
curiously limited — it does not appreciate the gentler ripples of the 
light- waves — it does not reach to their mightier undulations. Conse- 
quently, there may be tender colour-delicacies adorning the Universe, 
completely incognisable by us, and there may be also glows and 
intensities of light-beams magnificently resplendent, and unspeakably 
grand in tone, of which we can through our visual apparatus form no 
possible conception. Thus, our eye translates some waves into a 
language which we call colour, but its scholarship is limited. A certain 
number of signs it catches and interprets, the rest lie altogether out- 
side its ken. The Sun's softer light-harmonies, and his most awful 
emanations of beauty remain equally unknown. 

And another limitation has been imposed upon our optical appa- 
ratus. For a perception of heating powers belonging to colour- waves 
the eye refers us to the skin ; — and as to their chemical powers we are 
only just now discovering the instruments fitted for their true ap- 
preciation. 

Skilful, too, and yet at the same time very skill-less, is the divina- 
tion into sunlight given us by our human eyes ; — sunlight, that is to 
say, as a general resultant in its whiteness. For, if our eyes, keen 
and susceptible to its perfect clearness, attempt to analyze white light 
into its factors and elements, their resolving faculty manifests still 
more blank inabilities. And they fail also in examining certain 
colours : — 

"The most striking difference," writes Helmholtz, "between the 
mixture of pigments and that of coloured light is, that while painters 
make green by mixing blue and yellow pigments, the union of blue 

* "All the different sorts of rays which I have mentioned produce one effect in 
common. They raise the temperature of the objects on which they fall, and 
accordingly are all felt by our skin as rays of heat." (p. 237.) 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER III. 195 



and yellow rays of light, produces white In 'general, then, 

light, which consists of undulations of different wave-lengths, pro- 
duces different impressions upon our eye, namely, those of different 
colours. But the number of hues which we can recognise is much 
smaller than that of the various possible combinations of rays with 
different wave-lengths which external objects can convey to our eyes. 
The retina cannot distinguish between the white which is produced 
by the union of scarlet and bluish-green light, and that which is com- 
posed of yellowish-green and violet, or of yellow and ultramarine blue, 
or of red, green, and violet, or of all the colours of the spectrum 
united. All these combinations appear identically as white ; and yet, 
from a physical point of view, they are very different. In fact, the 
only resemblance between the several combinations just mentioned is, 
that they are indistinguishable to the human eye. For instance, a 
surface illuminated with red and bluish-green light would come out 
black in a photograph ; while another lighted with yellowish-green 
and violet would appear very bright, although both surfaces alike 
seem to the eye to be simply white. Again, if we successively illu- 
minate coloured objects with white beams of light of various composi- 
tion, they will appear differently coloured. And whenever we decom- 
pose two such beams by a prism, or look at them through a coloured 
glass, the difference between them at once becomes evident. 

" Other colours, also, especially when they are not strongly pro- 
nounced, may, like pure white light, be composed of very different 
mixtures, and yet appear indistinguishable to the eye, while in every 
other property, physical or chemical, they are entirely distinct." 
(pp. 239-241.) 

We may speak of visual Sensation, then, as a limited power of 
translating light. And what relation does visual Perception bear to 
this Power ? Probably the simplest way of expressing it, is to say 
that it is neither more nor less than the translation of a translation. 
The mind thus construes to itself what the visual sense is every 
moment busied with expressing in its own special language — the inter- 
pretation of movement, into colour, light and shadow. And from 
these data — these colours, lights and shadows, the mind draws its 
own inferences. 

Now these inferences thus drawn from preceding Sense inferences, 
— limited in range, as we have seen, and defective in analytic power ; 
— these inferences, such as they are, constitute the boasted certainty 
of eyesight ; and of all things apprehended by its means, — all 

— quae sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus et quse 
Ipse sibi traclit spectator. 



196 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



It needs but a statement of the mode in which our final mind- 
interpretations are constructed, — of these translated translations, — 
obscure in grammar and imperfect in vocabulary — to prove how very 
difficult is the position of the Realist. In view of this Empire of the 
Unknowable proclaimed by Science over the surest of our perceiving 
powers, the firmest foundations of our experimental knowledge, 
Helmholtz suggests that his reader " may feel determined to stick 
fast to the ' sound common sense ' of mankind, and believe his own 
senses more than physiology." (p. 270.) 

And such, no doubt, is the conclusion of the matter to the greater 
part of mankind. But we will in the first place prefer hearing the 
last word of the physiologist. From page 270 to page 313 of his 
work, he argues out the great question of how we perceive under 
the full impression of its vast importance to psychology, metaphysics, 
and the first principles upon which all science and all reasonings 
repose. "We have," he says (p. 281), " already learned enough to 
see that the questions which have here to be decided are of funda- 
mental importance, not only for the physiology of sight, but for a 
correct understanding of the true nature and limits of human know- 
ledge generally." 

The Physiologist's last word is this — Sense impressions are signs, 
the meaning of which we learn inductively by a process of self 
education. " Illusions obviously depend upon mental processes which 

may be described as false inductions There appears to me to 

be in reality only a superficial difference between the 1 conclusions ' of 
logicians and those inductive conclusions of which we recognise the 
result in the conceptions we gain of the outer world through our 
sensations. The difference chiefly depends upon the former conclu- 
sions being capable of expression in words, while the latter are not ; 
because, instead of words, they only deal with sensations and the 
memory of sensations. Indeed, it is just the impossibility of describ- 
ing sensations, whether actual or remembered, in words, which makes 
it so difficult to discuss this department of psychology at all." 
(pp. 307, 8.) And again (p. 314), " There is a most striking analogy 
between the entire range of processes which we have been discussing, 
and another System of Signs, which is not given by nature but arbi- 
trarily chosen, and which must undoubtedly be learned before it is 
understood. I mean the words of our mother tongue. 

" Learning how to speak is obviously a much more difficult task than 
acquiring a foreign language in after-life. First, the child has to guess 
that the sounds it hears are intended to be signs at all ; next, the 
meaning of each separate sound must be found out, by the same kind 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER III 



197 



of induction as the meaning of the sensations of sight or touch ; and 
yet we see children by the end of their first year already understand- 
ing certain words and phrases, even if they are not yet able to repeat 
them. We may sometimes observe the same in dogs. 

" Now this connection between Names and Objects, which demon- 
strably must be learnt, becomes just as firm and indestructible as that 
between Sensations and the Objects which produce them. We can- 
not help thinking of the usual signification of a word, even when it is 
used exceptionally in some other sense ; we cannot help feeling the 
mental emotions which a fictitious narrative calls forth, even when we 
know that it is not true ; just in the same way as we cannot get rid 
of the normal signification of the sensations produced by any illusion 
of the senses, even when we know that they are not real. 

" There is one other point of comparison which is worth notice. 
The elementary signs of language are only twenty-six letters, and yet 
what wonderfully varied meanings can we express and communicate 
by their combination ! Consider, in comparison with this, the enor- 
mous number of elementary signs with which the machinery of sight 
is provided. We may take the number of fibres in the optic nerves 
as two hundred and fifty thousand. Each of these is capable of 
innumerable different degrees of sensation of one, two, or three pri- 
mary colours. It follows that it is possible to construct an immeasur- 
ably greater number of combinations here than with the few letters 
which build up our words. Nor must we forget the extremely rapid 
changes of which the images of sight are capable. No wonder, then, 
if our senses speak to us in language which can express far more 
delicate distinctions and richer varieties than can be conveyed by 
words." 

Finally (pp. 315, 16), " The correspondence, the'refore, between 
the external world and the Perceptions of Sight rests, either in. whole 
or in part, upon the same foundation as all our knowledge of the 
actual world, — on experience, and on constant verification of its accu- 
racy by experiments which we perform with every movement of our 
body. It follows, of course, that we are only warranted in accepting 
the reality of this correspondence so far as these means of verification 
extend, which is really as far as for practical purposes we need. 

" Beyond these limits, as, for example, in the region of Qualities, 
we are in some instances able to prove conclusively that there is no 
correspondence at all between sensations and their objects. 

" Only the relations of time, of space, of equality, and those which 
are derived from them, of number, size, regularity of co-existence 
and of sequence — ' mathematical relations ' in short, are common to 



198 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



the outer and the inner world, and here we may indeed look for a 
complete correspondence between our conceptions and the objects 
which excite them. 

" But it seems to me that we should not quarrel with the bounty of 
nature because the greatness, and also the emptiness, of these abstract 
relations have been concealed from us by the manifold brilliance of a 
system of signs ; since thus they can be the more easily surveyed and 
used for practical ends, while yet traces enough remain visible to guide 
the philosophical spirit aright, in its search after the meaning of sen- 
sible Images and Signs." 

Let therefore this account of visual Perception be accepted by us, 
as it will probably be by three-fourths of scientific men throughout 
Europe. And, next, let us ask, as every real thinker will proceed to 
ask, on what grounds of certitude rests our assurance as regards the 
daily and hourly information received through this avenue of percep- 
tion, reasoned and acted upon with unswerving confidence by us all ? 

For an examination of the ground principle of Induction, the reader 
must be referred to our next chapter. But it is at once clear that no 
human experience can possess the attribute of universality, otherwise 
it would cease to be human. We have then in this present appeal to 
the veracity of Experience, no absolute knowledge to deal with, only 
knowledge as relative to mankind. Nay, we must go a little further 
still in our limitation, and say to the generality of mankind. For our 
eyes do not all see perfectly alike — a North-American Indian sees 
what a Cockney cannot discover ; the trained eye discerns differently 
from the untrained. On the differences of power in eye and ear rest 
the differences in many kinds of theorising — amongst which art- 
perceptions yield an obvious and familiar set of examples. And if we 
try for a mote precise estimate of the value of our limited human 
relativity, and proceed by way of comparison between our own diverse 
endowments, who shall venture to say that the eye of our body inter- 
preted by our understanding, tells our inmost self more truly than the 
eye of our human soul, informing us directly of the facts of its intui- 
tive vision ? So far as our actual means of valuing these two modes 
of beholding can go, there is no knowledge so perfect as the product 
of pure intuition, the glorious fabric of Mathematical Science. And 
to pure Science it matters not whether the requisite Schematism is. 
drawn upon a sheet of white paper or on the clear tablet of the 
imagining faculty of a philosopher. The purely inward view is in 
truth generally the farthest reaching, and the most unclouded. When, 
therefore, it is, and has been for centuries, apparent to the inmost eye 
of the generality of our race that there really exists a spiritual world 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER III. 199 



within themselves — above them, and in the far distant future beyond 
us all, permanent while we change, and the evidence of our own ulti- 
mate permanency, — such knowledge may undeniably be human, the 
very flower and distinction of our human nature ; and it may on that 
account be received by us as true. 

If, again, our ordinary human soul is so far a Christian as to 
exclaim with Tertullian, " good God," by what logical process 
shall we confute its utterance, while we maintain the utterance of our 
commonest sense-perceptions ? 

That we all see in frames, that we all think in frames, no rational 
thinker or perceiver will deny. If, however, any of us chooses to be 
an Idealist or Nihilist, let him at least be consistent ; — if he will assert 
the necessity of Doubt, let him maintain its empire by doubting his 
own assertion. But let no man think that Doubt leads him any 
whither except to an abnegation of thought, a mistrust alike of Sense 
and Soul, and an abdication of every human prerogative : — 

" Thy hand, great Anarch, lets the curtain fall, 
And universal Darkness buries all." 

So sang the witty rhymer, but we may add in prose that Doubt if 
thoroughly real, invariably commits suicide, and becomes first doubt- 
ful, after that, a non-entity at last. 



C. — HELMHOLTZ ON SPECIALTIES OF SENSIBILITY. 

The following passages from this interesting writer will be found in 
his Chapter " on the Sensations of Sight," between pp. 232 and 236. 
They will, it is hoped, be thoroughly intelligible if read in connection 
with the part of our last Chapter (pp. 158, 9) where a reference to 
this note was made. 

" The nerve-fibres have been often compared with telegraphic wires 
traversing a country, and the comparison is well fitted to illustrate 
this striking and important peculiarity of their mode of action. In 
the network of telegraphs we find everywhere the same copper or iron 
wires carrying the same kind of movement, a stream of electricity, 
but producing the most different results in the various stations accord- 
ing to the auxiliary apparatus with which they are connected. At one 
station the effect is the ringing of a bell, at another a signal is moved, 
and at a third a recording instrument is set to work Nerve- 
fibres and telegraphic wires are equally striking examples to illustrate 
the doctrine that the same causes may, under different conditions, 



200 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



produce different results. . . . . . As motor nerves, when irritated, 

produce movement, because they are connected with muscles, and 
glandular nerves secretion, because they lead to glands, so do sensitive 
nerves, when they are irritated, produce sensation, because they are 

connected with sensitive organs Whether by the irritation 

of a nerve we produce a muscular movement, a secretion or a sensa- 
tion depends upon whether we are handling a motor, a glandular, or a 
sensitive nerve, and not at all upon what means of irritation we may 
use. It may be an electrical shock, or tearing the nerve, or cutting it 
through, or moistening it with a solution of salt, or touching it with a 
hot wire. In the same way (and this great step in advance was due 
to Johannes Muller) the kind of sensation which will ensue when we 
irritate a sensitive nerve, whether an impression of light, or of sound, 
or of feeling, or of smell, or of taste, will be produced, depends 
entirely upon which sense the excited nerve subserves, and not at all 
upon the method of excitation we adopt. 

"Let us now apply this to the optic nerve, which is the object of 
our present enquiry. In the first place, we know that no kind of 
action upon any part of the body except the eye and the nerve which 
belongs to it, can ever produce the sensation of light. The stories of 
somnambulists, which are the only arguments that can be adduced 
against this belief, we may be allowed to disbelieve. But, on the 
other hand, it is not light alone which can produce the sensation of 
light upon the eye, but also any other power which can excite the 
optic nerve. If the weakest electrical currents are passed through the 
eye they produce flashes of light. A blow, or even a slight pressure 
made upon the side of the eyeball with the finger, makes an impres- 
sion of light in the darkest room, and, under favourable circumstances, 
this may become intense. In these cases it is important to remember 
that there is no objective light produced in the retina, as some of the 
older physiologists assumed, for the sensation of light may be so 
strong that a second observer could not fail to see through the pupil 
the illumination of the retina which would follow, if the sensation were 
really produced by an actual development of light within the eye. 
But nothing of the sort has ever been seen. Pressure or the electric 
current excites the optic nerve, and therefore, according to Miiller's 
law, a sensation of light results, but under these circumstances, at 
least, there is not the smallest spark of actual light. 

"In the same way, increased pressure of blood, its abnormal con- 
stitution in fevers, or its contamination with intoxicating or narcotic 
drugs, can produce sensations of light to which no actual light corre- 
sponds. Even in cases in which an eye is entirely lost by accident or 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER III. 



201 



by an operation, the irritation of the stump of the optic nerve while 
it is healing is capable of producing similar subjective effects. It 
follows from these facts that the peculiarity in kind which distinguishes 
the sensation of light from all others, does not depend upon any pecu- 
liar qualities of light itself. Every action which is capable of exciting 
the optic nerve is capable of producing the impression of light ; and 
the purely subjective sensation thus produced is so precisely similar 
to that caused by external light, that persons unacquainted with these 
phenomena readily suppose that the rays they see are real objective 
beams. 

" Thus we see that external light produces no other effects in the 
optic nerve than other agents of an entirely different nature. In one 
respect only does light differ from the other causes which are capable 
of exciting this nerve : namely, that the retina, being placed at the 
back of the firm globe of the eye, and further protected by the bony 
orbit, is almost entirely withdrawn from other exciting agents, and 
is thus only exceptionally affected by them, while it is continually 
receiving the rays of light which stream in upon it through the 
transparent media of the eye. 

" On the other hand, the optic nerve, by reason of the peculiar 
structures in connection with the ends of its fibres, the rods and cones 
of the retina, is incomparably more sensitive to rays of light than 
any other nervous apparatus of the body, since the rest can only be 
affected by rays which are concentrated enough to produce noticeable 
elevation of temperature. 

" This explains why the sensations of the optic nerve are for us the 
ordinary sensible sign of the presence of light in the field of vision, 
and why we always connect the sensation of light with light itself, even 
where they are really unconnected. But we must never forget that a 
survey of all the facts in their natural connection puts it beyond doubt 
that external light is only one of the exciting causes capable of bringing 
the optic nerve into functional activity, and therefore that there is no 
exclusive relation between the sensation of light and light itself." 

Some of the quotations just made direct attention to illusions of 
Sight which (as we have seen in our last note) Helmholtz elsewhere 
calls " false inductions." Now one curious fact relative to these im- 
pressions is that in many instances the objective consequent is due to 
a subjective antecedent. Some readers may like to peruse a short 
account of five variously caused sight-illusions taken from an Oration 
on Positivism delivered by the present writer at St. George's Hall in 
May 1871. The particulars here given of the fifth illusion should be 
compared with the foot-note on page 158 ante. 



202 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



" I will mention five instances in which people believe they see some- 
thing, and do not see it ; in other words, the objective antecedent is 
wanting, and the impression is produced partly by the sensory appa- 
ratus, partly by the mind itself. As I describe these instances one 
by one, let my hearers ask themselves, How does this illusion come 
about ? Is it produced by our optic instrument or by our mental 
activity ? 

"First, then, Take a lighted stick, and whirl it rapidly round and 
round. You believe you see a circle of sparks — in reality it is no 
more than a simple train, and on a like illusion the Catherine-wheel is 
constructed. Again, put yourself in the hands of an optically inclined 
friend, and let him operate upon you thus. He shall place a card- 
board down the middle axis of your face, quite close against your 
nose — one side of his board, say the right, coloured a brilliant red, 
the left a vivid green. After an instant or two let him suddenly sub- 
stitute another board, white on both sides. Do my young friends 
guess what will follow ? Your right eye will see green, your left red 
— the reverse of what they saw before ; yet neither will see correctly, 
for both eyes are looking at uncoloured surfaces. 

" Thirdly, Watch the full moon rising — how large and round she 
looks, resting as it were upon that eastern hill, and seen amidst the 
tops of its forest trees ! How much larger and broader than when 
she hangs aloft in upper sky ! Has every one here learned the true 
reason why ? If not, look at her through a slit in a card, and her 
diameter will be the same. 

" Fourthly, A schoolboy is crossing his bedroom in the deep dark 
night, anxiously hoping that his head may not come into collision with 
the bed-post. Though carefully and successfully avoiding it, he ima- 
gines of a sudden that the blow is imminent. Quick as thought he 
stops to save his head, and, behold, the room is as quickly filled with 
sparks or flames of fire. Another moment, and all becomes dark once 
more. I have heard many a schoolboy exclaim over this phenomenon, 
but never knew one who could explain it. Finally, did you ever, on 
opening your eyes in a morning, close them quickly again, and keep 
them shut, directing them as if to look straight forwards ? Most per- 
sons of active nervous power, after a few trials — say a dozen, or a 
score — are surprised to see colours appear and flit before the sight. 
Some years ago, Germany's greatest poet tried, at the suggestion of 
her greatest physiologist, a series of experiments on these coloured 
images. He found that by an effort of will he could cause them to 
come and go, govern their movement, march, and succession. And 
this took place under no conditions of impaired sensation, nor any 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER III. 



203 



hallucination of a diseased mind. A thoroughly healthy will suc- 
ceeded in impressing itself upon physical instruments, controlling 
their law, and creating at its own pleasure an unfailingly bright 
phantasmagoria. 

" Some here may, others may not, have apprehended the distinctions 
between our five cases. The first two are due to the sensory appa- 
ratus, its optical laws of continued impression and complementary 
colour. In the latter three, mind intervenes. The enlarged size of 
the moon occurs through rapid comparison, the fiery lights in a dark 
room through instinctive apprehension, both influences of mind on 
the sensory system. The fifth and most interesting of all is no bad 
example of interference between moral and material law. The will 
truly causative (you may remark) overrules the natural process of 
physical impression, alters it, and creates a designed effect. I wish I 
could induce my young friends to devise a number of experiments on 
similar mixed cases, and, having tried them, to dissect out their 
real laws. These sharpenings of the critical faculty are exceedingly 
useful — they cultivate clearness ; and most people know that two- 
thirds among our mistakes in life are caused by confusion of thought. 

" Besides all other uses, such lessons teach at once the necessity, as 
we said before, of observing your own observations. And as, first, 
the real witness of every observation is our mind ; every fact which 
conies through our bodily senses being to us a mental impression, it 
seems but common sense to hear above all things what mind has to 
say for and about itself. Then, secondly, where would be the benefit 
derived from our observations, if we could not reason upon them, or 
could place no confidence in our own reasonings ? Yet the art of 
reasoning is so purely a mental process, that it can be represented by 
symbols as abstract and free from material meaning as if they were 
bare algebraic signs. Thirdly, in the most accurate of sciences mind 
extends our knowledge far beyond the circle of observation, and gives 
us axiomatic assurance of its own accuracy. Who ever saw, or ever 
can see, all straight lines in all conceivable positions, yet who doubts 
that throughout the whole universe no two straight lines ever did 
inclose or can inclose a space ? And, fourthly, can it be a matter of 
indifference to any of us what evidence the mind offers concerning its 
own moral nature, and what is the value of that evidence, and the 
laws deducible therefrom ? How true it thus appears that ' know 
thyself lies at the root of all knowledge, and that the man who 
receives no witness from within can know nothing as he ought to 
know it ! " 



204 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



D. — POPULAR ACCOUNT OF PURE IDEALISM WITH 
CRITICAL REMARKS. 

" A classification of systems of philosophy according to the cosmo- 
logical conceptions governing them has actually been made. It is 
founded on a consideration of the differences among philosophers as 
to what that totality of existence is which is to be accepted as really 
vouched for by Mind. All agree, as we have said, that Mind is the 
sole voucher for anything ; but philosophers are divisible into schools 
according to the various views they have taken of the constitution of 
that phenomenal Universe, that Cosmos, that total round of things, 
of which we have a recurring assurance in every act of perception, 
and which is orbed forth more or less fully for each man in his wider 
contemplations. 

' ' The popular or habitual conception of mankind in general is that 
there are two distinct worlds mixed up in the phenomenal Cosmos — a 
world of Mind, consisting of multitudes of individual minds, and a 
world of Matter, consisting of all the extended immensity and variety 
of material objects. Neither of these worlds is thought of as begotten 
of the other, but each of them as existing independently in its own 
proper nature and within its own definite bounds, though they traffic 
with each other at present. Sweep away all existing minds, and the 
deserted Earth would continue to spin round all the same, still whirling 
its rocks, trees, clouds, and all the rest of its material pomp and 
garniture, alternately in the sunshine and in the depths of the starry 
stillness. Though no eye should behold, and no ear should hear, 
there would be evenings of silver moonlight on the ocean-marge, and 
the waves would roar as they broke and retired. On the other hand> 
suppose the entire fabric of the material Universe abolished and dis- 
solved, and the dishoused population of spirits would still somehow 
survive in the imaginable vacancy. If this second notion is not so 
easy or common as the first, it still virtually belongs to the popular 
conception of the contents or constitution of the Cosmos. The con- 
ception is that of a Natural Dualism, or of the contact in every act of 
perception of two distinct spheres, one an internal perceiving mind, 
and the other an external world composed of the actual and identical 
objects which this mind perceives. 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER III. 



205 



"On the first exercise of philosophic thought, however, this con- 
ception is blurred. An immense quantity of what we all instinctively 
think of as really existing out of ourselves turns out, on investigation, 
not to exist at all as we fancy it existing, but to consist only of affec- 
tions of the perceiving mind. The redness of the rose is not a real 
external thing, immutably the same in itself ; it is only a certain pecu- 
liar action on my physiology which the presence of an external cause 
or object seems to determine. Were my physiology different, the 
action would be different, though the cause or object remained the 
same. Indeed, there are persons in whom the presence of a rose 
occasions no sensation of redness such as is known to me, but a much 
vaguer sensation, not distinguishable from what I should at once dis- 
tinguish as greenness. And, as colour is thus at once detected as no 
external independently-existing reality, but only a recurring physio- 
logical affection of myself and other sentient beings like myself, so 
with a thousand other things which, by habit or instinct, I suppose as 
externally and independently existing. When I imagine the depopu- 
lated Earth still wheeling its inanimate rotundity through the daily 
sunshine and the nocturnal shadow, or one of its bays still resonant 
in moonlit evenings with the roar of the breaking waves, it is because, 
in spite of myself, I intrude into the fancy the supposition of a listen- 
ing ear, and a beholding eye analogous to my own. It is only by a 
strong effort that I can realize that a great deal at least of what I thus 
think of as the goings-on of things by themselves is not and cannot 
be their goings-on by themselves, but consists at the utmost of effects 
interbred between them and a particular sentiency in the midst of 
them. But the effort may be made ; and, when it is made repeatedly, 
in a great many directions, and with reference to a great many of the 
so-called properties of matter, the inevitable result for the philosophic 
mind is that the popularly-imagined substance of a real external world 
finds itself eaten away or corroded, at least to a certain depth. So 
far philosophers are agreed. It is when they proceed to consider to 
what depth the popularly-imagined substance of the real external 
world is thus eaten away, or accounted for, that they begin to differ. 

" Some philosophers, departing as little as may be from the popular 
judgment, suppose that, however much of the apparent external world 
may be resolved into affections of the subjective sentiency, there still 
remains an objective residue of such primary qualities as extension, 
figure, divisibility, mobility, etc., belonging to external matter itself, 
and by the direct and immediate cognizance of which the mind is 
brought face to face with external substance, and knows something of 
its real goings-on. Philosophers of this school are known generally 



206 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



as Realists. More numerous, however, are those who, not allowing 
an objective and independent reality even to the so-called primary 
qualities of matter, but believing them as well as colour, odour, or 
savour, to be only affections of the sentiency, deny that the mind is 
in any sense brought face to face with real external things such as 
they seem in the act of perception. To thinkers of this school there 
has been given the general name of Idealists. This broad distinction 
of Philosophers cosmologically into Eealists and Idealists is so far 
convenient enough. Cosmologically, or in respect of this present 
Universe of ours, with its dualism of Mind and Matter, every man 
must declare himself either a Realist or an Idealist, if he under- 
stands the meanings attached to these terms. The distinction has 
reference solely to his notion of the so-called external or material 
world in its relations to the perceiving mind. If he abides, though 
only in part, by the popular conception, and regards the material 
world as a substantial reality independent of the perceiving mind, and 
which the mind, according to its powers, presses against and directly 
apprehends in every act of perception, then he is a Realist. If, on 
the other hand, he cannot see that there need be asserted any external 
material world with such characters as we attribute to it, but supposes 
that our unanimous agreement in the imagination of such an external 
world is merely a habit of our own sentiency, projecting its own ideas 
or affections outwards, and giving them a body, then he is an Idealist." 
Masson, " Recent British Philosophy," pp. 58-64. Again p. 69, seq., 
" There is the system of Constructive Idealism. It may be so called 
to distinguish it from the more developed and extreme Idealism 
presently to be spoken of. According to this system, we do not 
perceive the real external world immediately, but only mediately — 
that is, the objects which we take as the things actually perceived are 
not the real objects at all, but only vicarious assurances, representa- 
tives, or nuntii of real unknown objects. The hills, the rocks, the 
trees, the stars, all the choir of heaven and earth, are not, in any of 
their qualities, primary, secondary, or whatever we choose to call 
them, the actual existences out of us, but only the addresses of a 
' something ' to our physiology, or eductions by our physiology out 
of a ' something.' They are all Thoughts or Ideas, with only this 
peculiarity involved in them, that they will not rest in themselves, but 
compel a reference to objects out of self, with which, by some arrange- 
ment or other, they stand in relation. Difficult as this system may be 
to understand, and violently as it wrenches the popular common sense, 
it is yet the system into which the great majority of philosophers in 
all ages and countries hitherto are seen, more or less distinctly, to 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER III. 



207 



have been carried by their speculations. While the Natural Realists 
among philosophers have been very few, and even these have been 
Realists in a sense unintelligible to the popular mind, quite a host 
of philosophers have been Constructive Idealists. These might be 
farther subdivided according to particular variations in the form of 
their Idealism. Thus, there have been many Constructive Idealists 
who have regarded the objects rising to the mind in external per- 
ception, and taken to be representative of real unknown objects, as 
something more than modifications of the mind itself — as having 
their origin without. Among these have been reckoned Malebranche, 
Berkeley, Clarke, Sir Isaac Newton, Tucker, and possibly Locke. 
But there have been other Constructive Idealists, who have supposed 
the objects rising in the mind in external perception to be only 
modifications of the mind itself, but yet, .by some arrangement, 
vicarious of real unknown objects, and intimating their existence. 
Among such have been reckoned Descartes, Leibnitz, Condillac, Kant, 
and most Platonists. The general name 'Idealists' it will be seen 
properly enough includes both the classes as distinct from the Natural 
Realists, inasmuch as both classes hold that what the mind is directly 
cognizant of in external perception is only ideas. But, inasmuch as 
these ideas are held by both classes, though under divers hypotheses, 
to refer to real existences beyond themselves, and distinct from the 
perceiving mind, the thinkers in question may also properly enough 
be called Realists or Dualists, though not ' Natural ' Realists or 
Dualists. They occupy a midway place between the Natural Realists 
and the philosophers next to be mentioned. 

" There is the system of Pure Idealism, which abolishes matter as a 
distinct or independent existence in any sense, and resolves it com- 
pletely into mind. Though this system is named in the scheme, for 
the sake of symmetry, and as the exact antithesis to Materialism, 
it is difficult to cite representatives that could be certainly discrimi- 
nated from the merely Constructive Idealists just mentioned on 
the one hand, and from the school of philosophers next following 
on the other. Fichte is, perhaps, the purest example." Ibid. pp. 
69-72. 

For perfect clearness we must put together two other passages 
from Professor Masson's interesting volume : — 

" There is the system of Nihilism, or, as it may be better called, 
Xon- Substantialistn. According to this system, the Phasnonienal 
Cosmos, whether regarded as consisting of two parallel successions 
of phsenomena (Mind and Matter), or of only one (Mind or Matter), 
resolves itself, on analysis, into an absolute Nothingness, — mere 



208 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



appearances with no credible substratum of Reality ; a play of 
phantasms in a void. If there have been no positive or dogmatic 
Nihilists, yet both Hume for one purpose, and Fichte for another, 
have propounded Nihilism as the ultimate issue of all reasoning that 
does not start with some d priori postulate." Masson, "Recent British 

Philosophy ," p. 66 If any one could assert " There 

is no Absolute," surely it might be the Nihilist, who has analysed 
away both Matter and Thought, and attenuated the Cosmos into 
vapour and non-significance. Yet, from the abyss of a speculatively 
reasoned Nihilism more void than Hume's, Fichte returned, by a 
convulsive act of soul, — which he termed faith — an intense, a 
burning, a blazing Ontologist. Ibid. p. 81." * 

This is certainly an eloquent account of philosophic Idealism as it 
may in its various phases be represented to the world of general 
readers. It turns, as every such speculation must turn, on the great 
principle, that our Sensations are so many series of signs and symbols. f 
They may be preordained, and our apprehension of them innate ; — 
they may be arbitrary, and their interpretation the work of man's 
intelligence. To decide this question, is to decide something as to 
the extent of their relativity; but will any one pronounce their 
information absolutely true ? 

At this point occurs a wide divergence between two great schools 
of Idealism — the Psychological, and the Theological thinkers. These 
schools inosculate in respect of some of their arguments, and of 
their objections against ordinary modes of thought. They disagree, 
however, in their aims — he ports at which they land themselves 
and their disciples. 

Psychological Idealism is best known to most readers through 
Mr. J. S. Mill. The Theological view, so far as this country goes, 
seems to have made scant progress beyond Berkeley and a few of his 
clever followers. For ordinary Englishmen, a reference to continental 
writers on this question seems useless ; — Theology being discussed 
by them in so ah extra a manner as to put them out of court with 
even the most metaphysical of our theologians. 

Regarding the subject in a psychological light, Mr. O'Hanlon made 

* The former of these two latter quotations has been cited already in a 
foot-note on p. 164 ante. It is repeated here for the sake of bringing together 
Masson's classification of Fichte, first as " Pure Idealist," and secondly as 
" Nihilist." Mr. O'Hanlon's criticism of Mill reaches exactly the same goal as 
regards that subtle controversialist. His position is that Mill's Pure Idealism 
when analysed, turns out to be Pure Nihilism. 

f Compare Note B preceding. 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER III. 209 



the following common-sense remarks amongst others of a more 
abstract nature :* — 

"To come now to Mr. Mill's Idealism. He, as all the world of 
thinkers knows, following the steps of Berkeley and Hume, claims, 
by means of his power of analysis, and by the aid of the formidable 
psychological instrument furnished him by the doctrine of the Asso- 
ciation of Ideas, to have got rid of all other existences save and 

except states of consciousness, actual and possible I 

propose to try and answer his arguments" {i.e. within certain 
expressed limitations) — 

" Let A = all my sensations. 

,, B = the group of sensations and of permanent possibilities 

of sensation I call my body. 
,, C = the group of permanent possibilities of sensation I call 
my friend Smith. 

" Now I find B always related to A in a very peculiar manner. B 
has in perpetual conjunction with it a long series of manifold states 
of consciousness, A. C resembles B in very many particulars, but it 
is not so related to A. I hence conclude, if I follow Mr. Mill, that 
C is so related to some other A, that is, to some other consciousness. 
In drawing this conclusion, in extending to C, which so closely 
resembles B, my experience of B, I, according to Mr. Mill, do but 
extend > the principles of inductive evidence, which experience shews 
hold good of my states of consciousness, to a sphere without my 
consciousness. " 

The italicized words sound simple enough to the ordinary reader, 
but argument upon them involves (as Mr. O'Hanlon observes) two 
serious postulates. " (a) That there is a sphere beyond my conscious- 
ness ; the very thing to be proved, (b) That the laws, which obtain 
in my consciousness, also obtain in the sphere beyond it." But; — 

"'Such an inference'" he goes on to quote from Mill would 
only be warrantable if we coald know d priori that we must have 
been created capable of conceiving whatever is capable of existing : 
that the universe of thought and that of reality, the microcosm and 
the macrocosm (as they once were called) must have been framed in 
complete correspondence with one another. That this is really the 
case has been laid down expressly by some systems of philosophy, 
by implication in more, and is the foundation (among others) of the 
systems of Schelling and Hegel ; but an assumption more destitute of 

* In the pamphlet referred to p. 165 ante, note. The quotations in our text 
commence on its oth page. The subject will be most easily comprehended after 
a reperusal of the argument of Chap. III. pp. 164-172 inclusive. 

14 



210 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



evidence could scarcely be made, nor can one easily imagine any 
evidence that could prove it unless it were revealed from above."' 
Mill on Hamilton, chap. VI. p. 65. 

The reader will probably see at once where the abstract difficulty 
lies, and how it runs up into the higher metaphysics. 

Now, as Mr. O'Hanlon puts the case, taking all this for granted ; 

"A boy cuts his finger and screams Yet if I was 

not by, the boy, the knife, the blood, the scream, would only exist 
potentially." 

Or on the other hand if I sacrifice consistency and substitute 
'actually' for 1 potentially,' "I thereby reject the validity of the 
Psychological method" which asserts "that the belief in an external 
cause of our sensations" is not original but "generated 'so early as 
to have become inseparable from our consciousness before the time 
at which memory commences.' .... Nevertheless, it after- 
wards admits that the belief in the case of persons, has an external 
cause. Hereby the method commits suicide, falsus in uno, falsus in 
omnibus." 

Finally, he remarks, " the psychological method professes very 
little regard for our natural beliefs. Now I can, by a vigorous effort, 
regard matter as mere states or possible states of my consciousness 
(at least I can do so for the moment), but I can also look on other 
persons in the same light. Why should one natural belief be treated 

more tenderly than another ? In short, if I refuse to 

postulate a non ego, and if I hold that, supposing the states of con- 
sciousness I call the ego can be shewn capable of producing the notion 
of the non ego, then they did produce it, and if I hold that they can 
be shewn to be so capable, such a theory is equally applicable to 
external consciousnesses as to external matter. In both cases, I cannot 
get out of the sphere of my own feelings ; there may be something 
beyond or there may not, but if there is, it is at all events incognisable 
by me, and to all intents and purposes I am alone in the universe."* 

In drift and true meaning Bishop Berkeley's Idealism differed toto ccelo 
from Mill's, as well as from Hume's idealistic Scepticism. His belief 
in a world outside us all was as firm as that of the firmest Realist, 

* On p. 14 the ingenious writer adds a further argument based on Mill's 
admissions. " If the fire apart from my consciousness be some positive con- 
dition or conditions of warmth and light, if the corn be some positive condition 
or conditions of food, my thesis is made out, and your Pure Idealism falls to 
the ground. If, on the other hand, ' the fire ' be nothing positive apart from 
my consciousness, then, since it is nothing at all when so apart, you can have 
no right to speak of ' modifications ' taking place in it, whether we are asleep 
or awake, present or absent." 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER III. 



211 



and by a world outside us he meant a world which neither we nor 
our conceptions can alter. His reasoning was also of the most 
common-sense description. Sensation is (as before said) a sign 
between us and things outside. But the sign tells us nothing of 
any substratum on which the things signified depend for their sign- 
giving powers. Matter (as commonly understood*) is a figment 
devised by certain philosophers ; — the true subsistence of the outward 
world is in and for mind, and apart from thought it does not subsist 
at all. But my mind, nay the human mind, is limited. There is 
One whose thoughts are not as our thoughts y — in Him the world 
subsists, and in Him we also have our Being continually. The world 
is what it is to us, in and through Him, and it appeals not to our 
so-called material frames but to our minds. 

Berkeley's argument was simply this. Take away gross matter — 
and the world is still perfectly Real. It is real because God is real. 
Real for us, real in Him ; and by this we know His Reality. f 

* It is worth, observing how truly our Bishop anticipated the vulgar objection 
against his theory. Towards the end of his Dialogues Hylas (who clings to 
the olden elemental nature) speaks thus : " To say, There is no Matter in the 
World, is still shocking to me. Whereas to say — There is no Matter, if by that 
Term be meant an unthinking Substance existing without the Mind ; but if 
by Matter is meant some sensible Thing, whose Existence consists in being 
perceived, then there is Matter : — this Distinction gives it quite another Turn ; 
and Men will come into your Notions with small Difficulty, when they are 
proposed in that manner." Lord Byron condescended to repeat the "coxcombs' 
grin"— 

" When Bishop Berkeley said there was no matter, 
And prov'd it — 'twas no matter what he said." 

f Bead for example the following eloquent passages from Berkeley's " Three 
Dialogues." Philonous, who represents Berkeley himself, says : " To me it is 
evident, for the Beasons you allow of, that sensible Things cannot exist other- 
wise than in a Mind or Spirit. Whence I conclude, not that they have no real 
Existence, but that seeing they depend not on my Thought, and have an 
Existence distinct from being perceived by me, there must he some other Mind 
wherein they exist. As sure, therefore, as the sensible World really exists, so 
sure is there an infinite omnipresent Spirit who contains and supports it. 

" Hylas. What ! This is no more than I and all Christians hold ; nay, and 
all others too who believe there is a God, and that he knows and comprehends 
all Things. 

" Phil. Ay, but here lies the Difference. Men commonly believe that all 
Things are known or perceived by God, becatise they believed the Being of a 
God, whereas V I, on the other side, immediately and necessarily conclude the 
Being of a God, because all sensible Things must be perceived by Him. 

" Hylas. But so long as we all believe the same thing, what matter is it how 
we come by that Belief 1 

" Phil. But neither do we agree in the same Opinion. For Philosophers, tho' 
they acknowledge all corporeal Beings to be perceived by God, yet they attribute 



212 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



By comparing this phase of Idealism with the modern doctrine of 
what is called the " Conditioned/' its Theological interest becomes 
still more obvious. Suppose we naturally know only what is con- 
ditioned (i.e. dependent on some Absolute reality to us unknown), 
what ought, asks Dr. Mansel, to be the inference ? The right 
inference is that the Divine Absolute did not leave our world in 
ignorance, but did really reveal Himself to Man. 

The fate of arguments framed in special interests, however noble 
those interests may be, is usually the same. Some clever antagonist 
allows their destructive force, but refuses their affirmative conclusions. 
Berkeley's denial of the unknown substratum called matter was 
approved by sceptics, who scoffed at his unknown God. His idealism 
was pronounced unanswerable, his divinity needed no answer. There- 
to them an absolute Subsistence distinct from their being perceived by any 
Mind whatever, which I do rot. Besides, is there no Difference between saying, 
There is a God, therefore he perceives all Things: and saying, Sensible Things 
do really exist : and if they really exist, they are necessarily perceived by an 
infinite Mind : therefore there is an infinite Mind, or God ? This furnishes 
you with a direct and immediate Demonstration, from a most evident Principle, 
of the Being of a God 

Hylas. It cannot be denied, there is something highly serviceable to Keligion 
in what you advance. But do you not think it looks very like a Notion enter- 
tained by some eminent Moderns, of seeing all things in God? 

Phil. I would gladly know that Opinion ; pray explain it to me. 

Hylas. They conceive that the Soul, being immaterial, is incapable of being 
united with material Things, so as to perceive them in themselves, but that she 
perceives them by her Union with the Substance of God, which being spiritual, 
is therefore purely intelligible, or capable of being the immediate Object of a 
Spirit's Thought. Besides, the Divine Essence contains in it Perfections cor- 
respondent to ' each created Being ; and which are, for that Keason, proper to 
exhibit or represent them to the Mind. 

Phil. I do not understand how our Ideas, which are Things altogether 
passive and inert, can be the Essence, or any Part (or like any Part) of the 
Essence or Substance of G-od, who is an impassive, indivisible, purely active 
Being. Many more Difficulties and Objections there are, which occur at first 
View against this Hypothesis, but I shall only add, that it is liable to all the 
Absurdities of the common Hypotheses in making a created World exist other- 
wise than in the Mind of a Spirit. Beside all which it has this peculiar to 
itself ; that it makes that material World serve to no Purpose. And if it pass 
for a good Argument against other Hypotheses in the Sciences, that they 
suppose Nature or the Divine Wisdom to make something in vain, or do that 
by tedious round-about Methods, which might have been performed in a much 
more easy and compendious way, what shall we think of that Hypothesis which 
supposes the whole World made in vain ? 

Hylas. But what say you, are not you too of Opinion that we see all 
Things in God ? If I mistake not, what you advance comes near it. 

Phil. I entirely agree with what the Holy Scripture saith, That in God me 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER IIL 213 



fore, the Reason remained without satisfaction of any kind. "Most 
of the writings" says Hume " of that very ingenious author form the 
best lessons of scepticism which are to be found either among the 
ancient or modern philosophers, Bayle not excepted. He professes, 
however, in his title-page (and undoubtedly with great truth,) to have 
composed his book against the sceptics as well as against the atheists 
and freethinkers, But that all his arguments, though otherwise 
intended, are, in reality, merely sceptical, appears from this, that they 
admit of no answer, and produce no conviction,''' (Inquiry. concerning 
the Human Understanding. Section XII.) And be it remarked that 
this final clause forms a skilled definition of Scepticism— its essential 
notion — given by an expert. Dean Mansel himself who left at his 
death an unfinished article upon Berkeley, suffered under a charge of 
promoting what he desired to discourage, r So dangerous is it to deal 

live, and move, and have our Being. But that we see Things in his Essence 
after the manner above set forth, I am far from believing. Take here in brief ray 
Meaning. It is evident that the Things I perceive are my own Ideas, and that 
no Idea can exist, unless it be in a Mind. Nor is it less plain that these Ideas 
or Things by me perceived, either themselves or their Archetypes exist hide, 
pendently of my Mind, since I know myself not to be their Author, it being 
out of my Power to determine at Pleasure what particular Ideas I shall be 
affected with upon opening my Eyes or Ears. They must therefore exist in 
some other Mind, whose Will it is they should be exhibited to me. The Things, 
I say, immediately perceived, are Ideas or Sensations, call them which you 
will. But how can any Idea or Sensation exist in, or be produced by, anything 
but a Mind or Spirit 1 This, indeed, is inconceivable : and to: assert that which 
is inconceivable, is to talk Nonsense : Is it not ?. 
Hylas. Without doubt. 

Phil. But on the other hand, it is very conceivable that they should exist in, 
and be produced by, a Spirit ; since this is no more than I daily experience in 
myself , inasmuch as I perceive numberless Ideas ; and by an Act of my Will 
can form a great Variety of them, and raise them up in my Imagination : Tho' 
it must be confessed, these Creatures of the Fancy are not altogether so distinct, 
so strong, vivid, and permanent, as those perceived by my Senses, which latter 
are called Real Things. From all which I conclude, there is a Mind which 
affects me every Moment with all the sensible Impressions I perceive. And 
from the Variety, Order, and Manner of these, I conclude the Author of them 
to be wise, powerful, and good, beyond comprehension. Mark it well, I do not 
say, I see Things by perceiving that which represents them in the intelligible 
Substance of G-od. This I do not understand ; but I say, The Things by me 
perceived are known by the Understanding, and produced by the Will, of an 
infinite Spirit. And is not all this most plain and evident ? Is there any more 
in it, than what a little Observation of our own Minds, and that which passes 
in them not only enables us to conceive, but also obliges us to acknowledge V 

Numberless charming quotations might be added from the "Principles'' as 
well as the Dialogues, but those already given may suffice, and they have been 
chosen now because not very commonly quoted. 



214 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



with wide questions by narrowing their sweep to a point ; yet on the 
other hand how few students are prepared to read and think widely ? 

Shall we attribute to a growing width of Thought, the increased 
breadth of view under which Idealism has of late years been repre- 
sented ? The German Philosopher, with whom Schwegler closes his 
philosophic history writes " This ideality or non- substantiality of the 
finite is the chief maxim of philosophy ; and for that reason every true 
philosophy is idealistic" (Xdealismus).* In England Mr. Green of 
Balliol signalises Berkeley's " true proposition — there is nothing real 
apart from thought — " and carefully distinguishes it from the one so 
often substituted for it — the fatal flaw of the Berkeleian argument. f 
Another influential thinker, Mr. Herbert Spencer, — who, like Pro- 
fessor Huxley, uses materialistic symbols treating them as symbols 
only, — has been for some time labouring after a "reconciliation of 
Realism and Idealism," which again is considered by an able critic, 

* Hegel Encyklop'adie T. i. S. 95. (Werke VI. 189.) The quotation above 
is from Mr. Wallace's translation p. 153. Compare his Index. 

f In the just published Edition of Hume's Treatise on Human Nature, I. 
p. 140. We must all regret the loss of Dean Mansel's ultimate thoughts on 
" The real error of Berkeley's Idealism." Letters &c. p. 391. But more than 
a dozen years earlier, he wrote, (Prolegomena Logica, Chap. V.) " The fault of 
Berkeley did not consist in doubting the existence of matter, but in asserting 
its non-existence." How far Mansel himself went in the direction of this same 
doubt may be judged from the following passage, which occurs in the Pro- 
legomena one page before. " Beyond the range of conscious beings, we can 
have only a negative idea of substance. The name is applied in relation to 
certain collections of sensible phenomena, natural or artificial, connected with 
each other in various ways ; by locomotion, by vegetation, by contributing to 
a common end, by certain positions In space. But here we have no positive 
notion of substance distinct from phenomena. I do not attribute to the billiard 
ball a consciousness of its own figure, colour, and motion ; but, in denying 
consciousness, I deny the only form in which unity and substance have been 
presented to me. I have therefore no data for thinking one way or the other 
on the question. Some kind of unity between the several phenomena may 
exist, or it may not ; but if it does exist, it exists in a manner of which I can 
form no conception ; and if it does not exist, my faculties do not enable me 
to detect its absence." In other words (as Mr. 0' Hanlon might have phrased 
it) " My friend Smith is I know a person, — therefore a substance. But Smith's 
hat and coat, being unconscious, lack the only forms in which unity and 
substance have been presented to me. Smith's coat is blue, its fabric woollen; 
his hat black, and of silken texture ; — there may or may not be unities in which 
these phenomena of colour and structural appearance cohere ; my faculties do 
not, however, enable me to decide whether hat and coat are or are not positively 
substantial unifications. 

It would appear from all this, that hats and coats and other familiar so-called 
substances, are as little essentially known to us as that vast territory of super- 
natural Being which has been named the " Unknowable." 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER III. 215 



Mr. Henry Sidgwick, " an impossible compromise." — Mr. Spencer's 
answer to Mr. Sidgwick, on this particular point, will be found in 
his recently published volume of " Essays" (III. 282 seq.). A very 
instructive sentence occurs on p. 290. " Should it be said that this 
regarding of everything constituting experience and thought as sym- 
bolic, has a very shadowy aspect ; I reply that these which I speak 
of as symbols, are real relatively to our consciousness ; and are 
symbolic only in their relation to the Ultimate Reality." 

So much then for a question which in a variety of shapes has 
exercised the human intellect throughout countless generations, and 
in all countries from India to the United States. It has also pervaded 
all spheres of Thought from physical science, (on which compare 
further, Additional Note I., and our next chapter), to the great philo- 
sophico-theological domain as we have already seen in certain speci- 
mens of Western thought. It would be easy to illustrate its empire 
far more extensively from those wonderful Eastern systems brought 
home to English readers thirty- six years ago by the translation of 
Hitters' Ancient Philosophy, but very imperfectly comprehended even 
now, notwithstanding the agreeable reception which Professor Max 
Miiller has provided for them. To his writings we will gladly refer 
the curious student. 



E.— ON THE RELATIONS OF FACT AND THEORY. 

"The distinction between Theory (that is, true Theory) and Fact 
is this : that in Theory the Ideas are considered as distinct from the 
Facts : in Facts, though Ideas may be involved, they are not, in our 
apprehension, separated from the sensations. In a Fact, the Ideas 
are applied so readily and familiarly, and incorporated with the sen- 
sations so entirely, that we do not see them, we see through them. A 
person who carefully notes the motion of a star all night, sees the 
circle which it describes as he sees the star, though the circle is, in 
fact, a result of his own Ideas. A person who has in his mind the 
measures of different lines and countries on the earth's surface, and 
who can put them, together into one conception, finds that they can 
make no figure but a globular one : to him, the earth's globular form 
is a Fact, as much as the square form of his chamber. A person to 
whom the grounds of believing the earth to travel round the sun are 
as familiar as the grounds for believing the movements of the mail 
coaches in this country, looks upon the former event as a Fact, just 



216 1HE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



as he looks upon the latter events as Facts. And a person who, 
knowing the Fact of the earth's annual motion, refers it distinctly to 
its mechanical cause, conceives the sun's attraction as a Fact, just as 
he conceives as a Fact, the action of the wind which turns the sails of 
a mill. He cannot see the force in either case ; he supplies it out of 
his own Ideas. And thus, a true Theory is a Fact ; a Fact is a 
familiar Theory. That which is a Fact under one aspect, is a Theory 
under another. The most recondite Theories when firmly established 
are Facts ; the simplest Facts involve something of the nature of 
Theory. Theory and Fact correspond, in a certain degree, with 
Ideas and Sensations, as to the nature of their opposition. But the 
Facts are Facts, so far as the Ideas have been combined with the 
Sensations and absorbed in them : the Theories are Theories, so far 
as the Ideas are kept distinct from the Sensations, and so far as it is 
considered still a question whether those can be made to agree with 
these. 

" We may, as I have said, illustrate this matter by considering man 
as interpreting the phenomena which he sees. He often interprets 
without being aware that he does so. Thus when we see the needle 
move towards the magnet, we assert that the magnet exercises an 
attractive force on the needle. But it is only by an interpretative act 
of our own minds that we ascribe this motion to attraction. That, 
in this case, a force is exerted — something of the nature of the pull 
which we could apply by our own volition — is our interpretation 
of the phenomena ; although we may be conscious of the act of 
interpretation, and may then regard the attraction as a Fact. 

" Nor is it in such cases only that we interpret phenomena in our 
own way, without being conscious of what we do. We see a tree at 
a distance, and judge it to be a chestnut or a lime ; yet this is only 
an inference from the colour or form of the mass according to pre- 
conceived classifications of our own. Our lives are full of such 
unconscious interpretations. The farmer recognizes a good or a bad 
soil ; the artist a picture of a favourite master ; the geologist a rock 
of a known locality, as we recognize the faces and voices of our 
friends ; that is, by judgments formed on what we see and hear ; but 
judgments in which we do not analyze the steps, or distinguish the 
inference from the appearance. And in these mixtures of observation 
and inference, we speak of the judgment thus formed, as a Fact 
directly observed. 

"Even in the case in which our perceptions appear to be most 
direct, and least to involve any interpretations of our own, — in the 
simple process of seeing, — who does not know how much we, by an 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER III. 217 



act of the mind, add to that which our senses receive ? Does any one 
fancy that he sees a solid cube ? It is easy to show that the solidity 
of the figure, the relative position of its faces and edges to each other, 
are inferences of the spectator ; no more conveyed to his conviction 
by the eye alone, than they would be if he were looking at a painted 
representation of a cube. The scene of nature is a picture without 
depth of substance, no less than the scene of art ; and in the one case 
as in the other, it is the mind which, by an act of its own, discovers 
that colour and shape denote distance and solidity. Most men are 
unconscious of this perpetual habit of reading the language of the 
external world, and translating as they read. The draughtsman, 
indeed, is compelled, for his purposes, to return back in thought from 
the solid bodies which he has inferred, to the shapes of surface which 
he really sees. He knows that there is a mask of theory over the 
whole face of nature, if it be theory to infer more than we see. But 
other men, unaware of this masquerade, hold it to be a fact that they 
see cubes and spheres, spacious apartments and winding avenues. 
And these things are facts to them, because they are unconscious of 
the mental operation by which they have penetrated nature's disguise. 

" And thus, we still have an intelligible distinction of Fact and 
Theory, if we consider Theory as a conscious, and Fact as an un- 
conscious inference, from the phenomena which are presented to our 
senses." — Whewell, Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, B. I. Chap, 
ii. Sect. 10. 



F. — ON THE " UNKNOWABLE." 

If the word which heads this note could be accepted in the sense 
understood by Mr. Spencer's American critic, as a truthful and in 
all respects complete description of the First Ground of all things, 
there must of course be an end of all Theology, natural, and super- 
natural; Theism, Pantheism, and Atheism, would together become 
what Comte thought them, — equally unfounded, equally unmeaning, 
and therefore equally to be opposed, condemned, and ostracized. 
Between Humanity and all that is Superhuman the gulf would appear 
hopelessly impassable. 

"To be consistent," says the Editor of the American Index, " Em- 
piricism must utterly sink the soul in its material surroundings. ..." 
Mr. Spencer makes his election in Empiricism, but shrinks from the 
acceptance of its necessary implications, and thereby forfeits his title 
to rank among the great leaders of philosophy. Teaching that every 



218 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



faculty of the mind is the effect of impressions made by the Environ- 
ment upon the Organism, he should also teach that the mind is nothing 
distinct from the organism, and that the mind's faculties will perish at 
the disintegration of the organism ; that, as fire is a mere phenomenon 
of chemical . combination, ceasing with it, so life is a mere phenome- 
non of organic "re-arrangement of parts," and will cease when the 
Dissolution which is the converse and sequel of Evolution has become 
complete ; and that the " theory of a ' soul ' is as completely exploded 
as the theory of 'phlogiston.' " 

Such is the opinion of an unsympathising reviewer, who calls him- 
self a Positivist of the latest development. He despises Comte, praises 
Hamilton, and preaches the truth of Dualism. "If," he writes, 
" physical science sneeringly objects that mental science proceeds 
on a sheer assumption of mind, the retort is crushing and cogent 
that physical science proceeds on the sheer assumption of matter- 

Who ever yet demonstrated the existence of either ? Only 

by admitting what can neither be demonstrated without a begging 
of the question, nor doubted without a reductio ad absurdam of all 
intelligence, — namely, the natural veracity of the intuitive and 
cognitive powers, — is a truly positive science possible." From this 
dualistic Positivism he predicts the rise of a new Theology. " We 
believe that Theism must be re-theologized on the basis of pure 
Positivism, as the absolute condition of its future growth." From 
the same point of view, Mr. Spencer's "reconciliation of Science 
and Religion" is "pretended"; and his "philosophy is chiefly 
valuable, as indicating the rapid spread of the true spirit of Posi- 
tivism," but, " like Comtism, it possesses little or no value as an 
exposition of Positivism in the highest departments of science." 

This censure of Spencer was combated in a subsequent number of 
the Index, by a writer signing himself "Evolutionist." The Editor 
prints his letter, and replies to it briefly: — " 1. The 'unknowable' 
must be an absolute blank to every intelligence. It surely cannot be 
held legitimate to make any predicate of it whatever, as Mr. Spencer 
himself admits. Yet he does make predicates of it which are ' derived 
from our own natures ' and thus violates his own principle. ' Omni- 
presence ' is simply presence throughout all space ; and what do we 
know of ' presence ' at all but by our own experience ? Mr. Spencer 
does the very thing he forbids us to do, in making this predication. 

" 2. The difference between him and us is briefly this. He denies 
that we know anything of Force ; we affirm that we know it just so 
far as it perceptibly acts. The Cause of Nature we maintain to be 
known in its effects. Hence Force is not to us the 'Unknowable,' 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER III. 



219 



but is rather the ' God of Science,' known just so far as Nature is 
known." 

Here follow some stringent criticisms of the distinction between 
phenomena and noumena accepted by Mill as well as Spencer, which 
we pass over as being somewhat unintelligible without a longer dis- 
cussion than can here be given to them. 

On the subject of our first quotation — Empiricism — many readers 
may like to peruse the opinion of a writer far removed from Mr. 
Abbott in philosophy. The following is Hegel's dictum : — 

" In Empiricism lies the great principle that whatever is true must 

be in the actual world and present to sensation Touching this 

principle it has been justly observed that, in what we call Experience, 
as distinct from the individual sensation of individual facts, there are 
two elements. First, there is the infinitely complex matter, which 
so far as itself is concerned is individualised : secondly, there is the 
form, as seen in the characteristics of universality and necessity. 
Empiricism no doubt can point to many, almost innumerable, similar 
perceptions : but, after all, no multitude, however great, can be the 
same thing as universality. Similarly, Empiricism reaches so far as 
the perception of changes in succession and of objects in juxta-position 
or co-existence ; but it presents no necessary connexion. If sensation, 
therefore, is to maintain its claim to be the sole basis of what men 
hold for truth, universality and necessity can have no right to exist : 
they become an accident of our minds, a mere custom, the content of 
which might be otherwise constituted than it is. 

"It is an important corollary of this theory, that in the empirical 
mode of treatment the truths and rules of justice and morality, as well 
as the body of religion, are exhibited as the work of chance, and 
stripped of their objective character and inner truth."* 

Considering how far Hegel confirms the American Positivist's 
opinion respecting the inevitable conclusions of consistent Empiri- 
cism, Mr. Spencer may with reason be congratulated on his very 
happy inconsistency. 

* From Mr. Wallace's translation of Hegel's Logik, pp. 65, 8, and 9. As 
the translator preserves the numbering of the Sections, reference is easy to 
the original German. Hegel adds a remark well worthy of attention : — 
" The scepticism of Hume, by whom this observation was chiefly made, should be 
clearly marked off from Greek scepticism. Hume founds his remarks on the truth 
of the empirical element, on feeling and sensation, and proceeds to attack 
universal truths and laws, because they do not derive their authority from 
sense-perception. So far was ancient scepticism from making feeling and 
sensation a canon of truth, that it turned against the deliverances of sense 
first of all."— Ibid. p. 69. 



220 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



The subject of quotation No. 2 — Spencer's position in regard of 
the Unknowable — contains a censure which unites in alliance many 
widely differing authorities on this side the Atlantic. Some of these 
assail it from an extremely hostile point of view ; but the criticism 
of others is conceived in a half-friendly, half-indifferent spirit. Mr. 
Spencer has very lately published a third volume of " Essays," and 
devotes Articles X. and XI. to his reviewers. * It need hardly be 
said that these pages will repay perusal. We shall here venture on 
giving a brief account of his defence as it presents itself to our own 
understanding. 

The most salient difference between him and his critics generally, 
seems to lie in this circumstance ; — they begin by taking the word 
" Unknowable " in its strict (i.e. its proper) signification. Hence 
they appear to assume that by "Absolute" he means — or ought to 
mean even when seeming to say the contrary — " absolutely abstract." 
Now of a mere, that is, a pure and complete abstraction, nothing can 
be predicated, because the idea is perfectly empty. It is in fact a 
Nothingness. 

But suppose we say of this Absolute, (as Spencer does), it exists ; — 
we have predicated something already; — something which destroys 
its complete emptiness. And again, if we are asked or, (what is 
better), ask ourselves how we know that an Absolute does exist, and 
proceed to reply, as Spencer himself replies, because it must exist ; 
we shall have made respecting our Absolute this highest of all possible 
predications. It is not only Being, but necessary Being, or, in other 
words, it is a Self- Existent. Still more, since it is so in contradistinc- 
tion from the universe of relativities, it is The Self-Existent, a totally 
different idea from that which the American editor dissects. 

But now comes the question, who or what is answerable for the 
Reviewer's misconception, — Spencer or his critics ? Is it the poverty 
of language, or the law of controversial sequency, — a law under which 
every thought arises as antagonistic to some other thought, and after- 
wards, when arisen and firmly established so as to become the subject 
of analysis, is found to yield more than was at first conceived. Then, 
of course, another antithesis arises respecting it, and we have to 
decide how much and what is truly meant, a question which often 
comes before us in this shape : — Is our thought merely the not so and 
so, or is it a real substantive idea ? In the former case it is one-sided 
and negative ; in the latter it is many-sided and affirmative. 

At the first blush, it seems natural to blame Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
Every one must feel astonished to find how much he himself knows of 
* Pp. 234-341. The preface to this volume is dated February 1874. 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER III. 



221 



the Unknowable. The following sentences, however, contain a good 
account of one amongst his principal explanations of this apparent 
incongruity. Speaking of Mr. Martineau's conception of the Creator,* 
he writes (Essays, Yol. III. p. 299) : — 

il Finding, as just shewn, that it leaves the essential mystery un- 
solved ; I do not see that it has an advantage over the doctrine of the 
Unknowable in its unqualified shape. There cannot, I think, be more 
than temporary rest in a proximate solution which takes for its basis 
the ultimately insoluble. Just as thought cannot be prevented from 
passing Jbeyond Appearance, and trying to conceive the Cause behind ; 
so, following out the interpretation Mr. Martineau offers, thought 
cannot be prevented from asking what Cause it is which restricts the 
Cause he assigns, And if we must admit that the question under this 
eventual form cannot be answered, may we not as well confess that 
the question under its immediate form cannot be answered ? Is it not 
better candidly to acknowledge the incompetence of our intelligence, 
rather than to persist in calling that an explanation which does but 
disguise the inexplicable '? Whatever answer each may give to this 
question, he cannot rightly blame those who, finding in themselves an 
indestructible consciousness of an ultimate Cause, whence proceed 
alike what we call the Material Universe and what we call Mind, 
refrain from affirming anything respecting it ; because they find it as 
inscrutable in nature, as it is inconceivable in extent and duration." 

There will be to many people much force in this plea for leaving 
inscrutables amidst their primary obscurities. But it is open to a 
rejoinder suggested by Mr. Spencer himself, — you cannot prevent the 
Mind from inquiring; and, in point of fact, Spencer in person leads the 
way. He places before us the ultimate idea of a self-existent First 
Cause. Now surely he might reflect that such an Idea not only 
permits but invites analysis ; — it is no empty abstraction, but a sub- 
stantive thought and a full one. But he bars analysis to his own 
satisfaction, by saying that the Idea is in its own Nature inscrutable. 
Respecting this position two questions arise. First, if inscrutable as 
to its ultimate nature — its highest essence, and deepest thought, — is 
it so in its attributes ? Next, if Spencer's special walk in philosophy 
ends with the bare positing of this Idea, must all Philosophy do the 
same? Suppose the Physicist says — "Here I learn to know the 
Fact of a self-existent universal First Cause," may not the investi- 
gator of our Practical human Reason try to discover whether an 
Ethical view ought or ought not to be taken of this Self-Existent ? 

* Martineau's conception discussed by Spencer is hampered by a theory of 
Matter difficult per se. 



222 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



To answer " No," is either to make physical philosophy the sole 
philosophy; or it is to dismember and disjoint the universal Body of 
Truth into departmental carcase-fragments ; — a process which never 
can begin till all Life has been effectually crushed out of the Whole.* 
For every one who takes wide views of Philosophy ; — for every 
inquirer into First Principles ; — above all, if Mr. Spencer will permit 
us to say so, for every Encyclopaedic writer like himself, a question must 
arise the answer to which it is incumbent on all and each to ascertain, 
" Can we have any conscious idea whatever of a First Cause without 
including that very fact of Personality from which Spencer appears to 
shrink ? " Nay we may rather put the point thus : " Is not our idea 
and definition of Causality derived from Personal existence, and apart 
from this source of derivation, does not the derived idea perish ? " — 
If so, to speak of a non-personal First Cause both of the outside world 
and of mind itself is to use words to which no thinker can consciously 
attach any real meaning. There must, says Mr. Spencer, be Power 
behind Appearance ; — in other words, Phenomena imply a Cause 
behind them, — but to add that this Power or Cause is conceivably 
impersonal, seems nothing better than to imagine (Hibernice) at the 
beginning of the phenomenal chain, a prior phenomenon which in its 
own nature and ex vi verborum cannot account for a Beginning! at 
all ; — cannot, to use Mr. Spencer's expression, be " ultimate " ; and, 
in short, requires to be accounted for, itself. 

The truth is, that such ideas as First, Ultimate, Power accounting 
for appearance, or Cause underlying phenomena, cannot be spoken of 
as altogether Unknowable ; because they imply and contain within 
themselves certain knowable and strongly defined characteristics. 
Pressed by his critics, Mr. Spencer becomes painfully aware of this 
truth ; and is fearful of being driven by logic and philosophical con- 
sistency to plead guilty of believing in a Personal Author of the 
Universe, and of making Theism the ultimate word of Science. We 
see on pp. 292 and 302 of Yol. III. how he manifests a preference for 
the phrase non-relative, vice Absolute ; meaning thereby (if he means 
anything new) to replace an affirmative idea by a negational abstract, 
empty enough to land him at once in American Positivism. For, if 
the non-relative means more than to say that he is unable to predicate 
relativity of the whole Universe of things — if it means more than an 
avowal of Positivist ignorance — it really does mean a true Absolute 

* See back pp. 76-8 and 107 (end of note) and connect with these passages 
the oft-repeated Wordsworthian maxim : — 

" We murder to dissect." 
f See our Chapter VI. On Causation. 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER III. 



223 



after all ; and very few students of Mr. Spencer will doubt that in 
the sense of an Absolute (not necessarily Hegelian), this ground idea 
of his must be accepted. 

As courteous antagonists, we will endeavour to abstain from join- 
ing with Mr. Sidgwick in the severest censure which has yet befallen 
Mr. Spencer, — the imputation of a " mazy inconsistency," a " funda- 
mental incoherence," and an " inability to harmonize different lines 
of thought." We rather wish to congratulate him on presenting such 
an appearance before the eye of a critic so accomplished, and so equi- 
table ; it is a sign that we have not as yet heard Mr. Spencer's final 
utterance. He is, we are quite sure, divided by a wide tract of 
thought from the American Positivists ; — but we are not sure that he 
may not ultimately be found amid the ranks of Scientific Theists. 
This at the present moment appears the most. natural development of 
the thoughts maintained in his recently published volume. That the 
nature of God, considered as the " ultimate cause of what we call the 
material universe and what we call mind," is to us at present inscrut- 
able ; — that clouds and darkness are round about Him ; — that His 
ways are not as our ways, nor His thoughts as our thoughts, no medi- 
tative Theist will deny. But, though the Heavens are higher than the 
Earth, though beatified spirits worship in humble adoration of the 
Incomprehensible, yet the measureless distance does not hinder us 
from knowing Him as a Spirit, and therefore as a Peeson ; nor yet 
from confidently affirming that Eighteousness and Judgment are the 
habitation of His throne. 



G. — MR. J. S. MILL AS AN INDEPENDENT MORALIST. 

Few passages of Mr. Mill's writings are better worth reading than 
pages 123, 4, of his " Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Philo- 
sophy." In these pages the eminent writer asserts his own strong 
moral sentiments, and throws to the winds that inconsistent Utili- 
tarianism with which he had trained his mind to associate them. He 
will worship no Unknowable Being whose supreme moral nature 
does not affirm our human morality. " Why is this ? " an opponent 
might fairly ask ; "is it not useful so to do? is not such worship 
conducive to that noblest final end, the interest of mankind?" By 
saying "No" you affirm two things : one, the dissociation of Religion 
from Utility ; a second, the indivisible association of Religion with 
absolute Morality. 



224 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



Some antagonists may consider the first of these two propositions 
inadmissible, the second objectionable, or at all events, exceedingly 
doubtful. Every one who maintains that Natural Theology has, in 
addition to its other elements, a firm and moral ground, will accept 
with ready assent the second proposition, and will say that the truth 
or falsehood of the first depends on the meaning attached to an 
ambiguous word. We are equally sure that " Godliness is profitable 
for all things," and that " Honesty is the best policy." But then we 
are quite sure also, that the final cause of Godliness is not profit, nor 
its essential nature a love of gain ; and that policy is not a true 
description of honesty, nor the being politic the true and proper aim 
of the honest man. And Mr. Mill, when his moral sentiments 
asserted themselves, felt these certainties as elements of his inner 
life. Eather than worship a Being whose unknown moral attributes 
fell beneath, not the dictates of Utility, but the purest instincts of his 
own inmost morality, Mr. Mill goes on to declare that he is willing to 
suffer the horrors of Eternal death. * Hell is better than a violation 
of his own moral nature. Can this be a declaration deduced from 
the supreme law of Interest,' — is it not rather a foundation maxim of 
independent morality ? Violate such foundation maxims, says the 
independent moralist, and you need not even speak of " Going to 
hell," hell will come to you. Sooner or later you will find its undying 
torments within you. 

In an article on the death of Mr. Mill, the Pali Mall Gazette ex- 
presses its perception of his leading inconsistency as follows : — 

"It is impossible to read Mr. Mill's works with any attention, and 
in particular to look with intelligence on the later part of his career, 
without seeing that by temperament he was essentially religious, but 
that as far as positive doctrine went his mind was an absolute blank. 
We believe that it was this sharp contrast between theory and feeling 
which drove him into the schemes for the improvement of the world 
which have been exposed to so many, and, in some respects, to such 

* The paragraph cited in the text of Chapter III. concludes with these words : 
— " I will call no being good, who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet 
to my fellow-creatures ; and if such a being can sentence me to hell for not 
so calling him, to hell I will go." 

Now, no man can sit down and calculate himself into Mr. Mill's conviction 
thus enounced ; neither could any cool process of argument have ever kindled 
such a flame. A sternness of purpose like his must be either the skeleton- 
armour covering the thoughtless boy in Tennyson's Gareth and Lynette, or it is 
the reflection of a light intuitively flashed through the soul — the echo of a chord 
struck upon the writer's very heart-strings. Such and so deep, beyond doubt,, 
was the ingenuous feeling of Mr. Mill. 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER III. 



225 



well-founded objections. Having to love something, and being, as it 
were, chained down by his own logic to this world and this life, past, 
present, and future, he struggled to make a sort of religion out of man 
as he might come to be after centuries or millenniums. Humanity, 
progress, a realization of all the ideals at which his theories pointed 
— these were his divinities, for he was a man who could not do with- 
out some divinity, and he could find no other. We do not think that 
his life or his thoughts were triumphant. If he had consistently 
followed out his own views, if he had carried out his Benthamism 
with perfect consistency, the result would have been too hard, too 
grim, too dismal for his eager and sensitive heart. Hence came the 
faltering, the inconsistency, the romance of his later days. It is a 
spectacle which may well humble every one who looks on it with 
intelligence and sympathy. From us, at least, it shall never draw 
one word of sarcasm, or one ^hought which is not full of deep respect, 
regret, and pity. He bore a burden common to many. If he bent 
under it, it was not because his strength was less, but because his 
sensibility was greater. When he died one of the tenderest and most 
passionate hearts that ever set to work an intellect of iron was laid to 
rest. May he rest in peace, and find, if it be possible, that his know- 
ledge was less complete than he perhaps supposed, and that there was 
more to be known than was acknowledged in his philosophy." [Pall 
Mall Gazette, Saturday, May, 10, 1873.) 

A little earlier in the same article we find another paragraph worthy 
of careful consideration : — " No succession of writers ever exercised 
greater power over the fortunes of this nation, we might say of any 
nation, than Locke, Hume, Adam Smith, Bentham, and Mr. Mill. 
What may be described as the theory of modern life has been thought 
out by them, and translated into its practical equivalents with a per- 
sistency, a precision, a degree of method and calmness unequalled in 
the history of thought. We do not say that their results are complete, 
but we do say that their teaching has been successful to an unex- 
ampled degree ; and that, however unpopular it may be with ardent 
and enthusiastic persons, it is impossible to believe that it could have 
done what it has done without possessing a very strong hold on 
.human nature." 

Viewing this extract by the light of the one before cited, we cannot 
help asking what side of human nature is it to which the Benthamite 
doctrines attach themselves ? Shall we not regret that the hard, the 
grim, and the dismal, should characterize our 19th century philosophy ? 
Philosophy that is falsely so called; for the true is " not harsh and 
.crabbed as dull fools suppose." 

15 



226 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



The text of this Essay and its earlier notes were completed while 
Mr. Mill was in the ripeness of his powers, and when the present 
writer never expected to outlive him. Death softens our view of one 
who has passed away — the bygone life becomes like a moonlighted 
landscape — asperities hidden in shadow, and a soft radiance poured 
over each grander eminence. So may it be felt by the critic of every 
great departed ! If, indeed, it prove otherwise with Mr. Mill, the 
preventing cause will probably be found in certain pages of his pub- 
lished "Autobiography." 



H. — ARCHEBIOSIS, OR SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 

The origin of Life is a question that naturally excites much interest, 
and consequently has been much discussed. It is obviously a problem 
that presents difficulties of no ordinary kind, and therefore it is by no 
means astonishing that many theories have been started and state- 
ments made which have in turn been quickly contradicted. 

It is now known that the whole cycle of phenomena — collectively 
denoted by the term " Life" — is manifested by a substance possess- 
ing definite physical and chemical properties, and by no other. This 
substance constitutes the entire organism of the lower forms of life, 
whether animal or vegetable, and also of the higher in their earliest 
stage, while from it by various metamorphoses are developed the 
different histological elements composing the complex tissues of higher 
animals and plants. Its name Protoplasm is in consequence exceed- 
ingly apt, when properly understood. 

As to the origin of Protoplasm (or apparent Life) it is clear from a 
little consideration that two questions may be asked : first, how did 
Protoplasm arise ? and secondly, when once this substance had come 
into being are we to suppose that from that time to this all Protoplasm 
has been derived by unbroken descent from the first Protoplasm, or does 
fresh Protoplasm even now arise in the same way as did the first ? — 
in other words, does the transition from the inorganic to the organic, 
from what has never lived to what is living, still take place as it must 
have taken place at some period or another ? 

To neither of these questions can Physical Science return a perfectly 
certain and definite answer. And it must be confessed that as far as 
our knowledge of Nature goes, those have the best of it who maintain 
first, that all existing Protoplasm implies pre-existing Protoplasm ; 
secondly, that as to the method, the conditions of the real origin of 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER III 



227 



Protoplasm nothing whatsoever is known ; and thirdly, that, notwith- 
standing all assertions and experiments to the contrary, the origin of 
living things from dead and decaying organic matter {i.e., matter that 
has lived), or from inorganic matter under given conditions (spon- 
taneous generation, generatio gequivoca, archebiosis) has never been 
proved and demonstrated in such a manner as to allow us mo room for 
hesitation, no place for doubt. 

The difficulties and dangers besetting this- thorny and much-vexed 
subject will be better understood if we institute a short examina- 
tion into the history and present condition of the doctrine of Sponta- 
neous Generation. 

It is certain from the results of astronomical and geological inves- 
tigation, that at an exceedingly remote epoch, estimated by untold 
millions of years, the earth's surface was absolutely unfitted for the 
presence of life ; nay, more, that even the laws of chemical com- 
bination were suspended, and in abeyance. After the glowing 
spheroid cooled down, and various chemical compounds were formed, 
life as a matter of fact made' its appearance on the earth. Throughout 
the inorganic world the continuity is unbroken — the present is truly 
the child of the past. But in the organic 'world it is not so. Whether 
life arose in the natural course of universal law, or how it did arise, 
we cannot tell, scientifically y that is to say ; no assertion, one way or 
the other, admits either of proof or disproof. There are absolutely 
no data to proceed upon. The very first organic remains discovered 
belong to a comparatively high type. It is as though in a garden 
every plant and bush burst at once into full flower,, and never showed 
the flower in the bud. 

These points are very well put in a passage of Littre : * " Jusqu'a 
ce moment, nous avons chemine de phenomenes en phenomenes qui 
se passaient tous sous le regime des lois chimiques et physiques. Leur 
succession ne presentait aucune solution de continuity ; les degres 
tenaient Fun a l'autre ; et c'est cette deduction qui satisfait l'esprit 
humain, et qu'il nomme explication. Une fois que Ton reconnait 
une dissemination premiere, dans l'espace, d'une matiere douee de 
gravitation et de mouvement, tout en ignorant absolument d'ou vient 
cette matiere and d'ou procedent son mouvement et sa dissemination, 
le reste s'ensuit. Des amas qu'on appelle soleils se forment par 
condensation ; cette condensation developpe une immense chaleur ; 
le refroidissement graduel separe les amas primordiaux en amas 
secondaires et plus petits qui se meuvent comme lui, se refroidissent 
comme lui, et representent nos planetes, nos satellites, et en particulier 
* La Science au point de Vue Philosoptrique, pp. 539-542. 



228 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



notre terre. On a Punivers, on passe au monde, et du monde au 
globe terrestre. 

"Mais la, sur le monde terrestre, un hiatus se presente. : Un pheno- 
mene nouveau, une force nouvelle apparait, et la vie se developpe en 
vegetalite et animalite. < Ce phenomene nouveau, cette force nouvelle, 
cette vie ne succedent point par une action continue aux actions con- 
tinues dont le soleil et la terre sont le theatre ; du nioins, en l'etat 
actuel de nos connaissances, la continuite nous echappe. On concoit, 
grace a des faits experimentaux recueillis de toutes parts et trans- 
formes en lois, comment notre globe se refroidit, comment, en se 
refroidissant, il prend sa forme, comment l'atmosphere, les continents, 
la mer se constituent ; mais on ne concoit phis -comment la vie y 
parait a un moment donne. Et ce fut bien a un moment donne: 
pendant des millions de siecles, la terre, vu son incandescence, fut 
impropre a toute vie. Quand la temperature y eut baisse au degre 
compatible avec les existences vivantes, ces existences se montrerent ; 
mais comment ? par quel procede ? 

" II ne faut pourtant pas faire valoir outre mesure cette discontinuite. 
Une discontinuite, autre que celle qui appartient a l'apparition de la 
vie, est survenue dans le cours du developpement de la terre. Quand 
les particules qui la composent, etaient animees d'une immense 
chaleur, une dissociation complete y regnait ; elles n'obeissaient 
qu'aux lois du mouvement, de la gravitation, de la chaleur et de la 
lumiere ; les lois chimiques, c'est-a-dire de combinaison et de decom- 
binaison, n'y etaient qu'a l'etat virtuel. Elles passerent a l'etat 
effectif, des que l'abaissement de la temperature le permit. Je sais 
bien qu'une difference considerable existe entre ces deux discon- 
tinuites : en effet, depuis lors, il a toujours ete possible de reproduire 
a volonte les faits chimiques; et, toutes les fois que nous en avons 
besoin, nous repetons le phenomene d'origine qui se produisit dans 
les combinaisons et decombinaisons. Pour la vie, c'est autre chose ; 
elle a ete une fois emise, et, depuis le phenomene d'origine, elle ne se 
propage que par generation. Un etre vivant est necessaire pour pro- 
duire un etre vivant ; et, ni par les procedes de la nature, ni par ceux 
de la science, ce qui se fit au moment createur ne se refait. Malgre 
cette considerable difference, il demeure que la terre a possede des 
forces virtuelles qui sont entrees en action, quand les conditions 
generates, se modifiant graduellement, ront permis. ,; 

A little further on he continues : — " Au point de vue d'origine, on 
abandonnerala question comme toutes les questions qui impliquent une 
cause premiere. La philosophic positive s'exprime la-dessus comme 
elle s'exprime touchant toutes les choses hyperphysiques, c'est-a-dire 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER III. 229 



placees au dela cle l'experience. Quand elle entend les materialistes 
prononcer que la vie est le resultat des forces physiques et chimiques 
dont on connait Taction, elle refuse d'accepter une solution qui 
depasse les premisses.. Mais elle n'ecarte pas la solution mate- 
rialiste au profit de la solution theologique ; Tintervention d'un Dieu 
createur est egalement inverifiable par l'experience, et, pariant, atteinte 
de la meme fin de non-recevoir. Maintenant, si on demande a la 
philosophic positive quelle est, a elle, sa solution entre la-generation 
materialiste et la creation surnaturelle, elle repond qu'elle n'a aucune 
solution a proposer, que rien ne peut la forcer a croire ce qui n'est 
pas demontre, et qu'elle accepte, avec autant de fermete que d'hu- 
milite, une ignorance invincible sur tout ce qui est indemontrable." 

In the first passage certain salient points are strikingly brought 
out, above all the vast difference between the worlds organic and 
inorganic ; but, next, how much soever a Positivist may be pleased to 
believe only that which admits of. phenomenal verification, it is not 
every one, especially if given to thought, who would willingly endorse 
the second paragraph. If we know only what we can verify, many 
beliefs must needs be abandoned, and amongst them some which 
have received the almost universal assent of mankind. Knowledge 
(in the sense of verifiable knowledge) and Belief may. appear two 
widely different things ; but it should never be forgotten that we often 
accept the one as surely as the other. 

The ancients held that living things arose from the earth- at any 
time, engendered by the warmth of the sun and moisture. Absurd 
as it may seem, the belief that blue-bottle flies, etc.,. were a natural 
result of the decay of meat and other organic matter obtained cre- 
dence even in comparatively modern times. Redi, an eminent Italian, 
first demonstrated experimentally the falsehood of 'this doctrine, and 
for some time the hypothesis of spontaneous generation appeared to 
have received a death-blow. And by degrees the conviction that 
every living thing proceeded from a germ gained strength, and was 
confirmed by the rapidly extending use of the microscope. Yet in 
the eighteenth century certain experiments of Needham seemed to 
establish the fact that in boiled infusions where presumably all germs 
were destroyed, small Infusoria made their appearance even when 
means were taken to exclude the entrance of fresh .germs. . Buffon 
lent the authority of his great name. These experiments were 
repeated by the Abbe Spallanzani, who showed by more careful 
methods the fallacy of the conclusions drawn. A passage in Sir B. 
Brodie* which alludes to these facts may be worth quoting : — 
* Psychological Inquiries, second part, pp. 195-197. 



230 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



"Crites. Then am I to understand that you would reject alto- 
gether the hypothesis of equivocal generation, which supposes that 
under certain circumstances, even at the present time, particles of 
inorganic matter are brought together, and so united as to become 
endowed with organization and life ? 

"Eubulus. The question is , one of great interest, and I will refer 
you to Ergates for an answer, knowing at the same time pretty well 
what that answer will be. 

" Ergates. Of course Crites refers to the production of those 
minute creatures, known by the name of Infusoria, in the experi- 
ments of Walter Needham, and some others. 

" It is true that in these experiments , certain vegetable and animal 
infusions, after no very long period of time, when examined by the 
microscope, are found to contain a multitude of minute creatures, of 
various forms, exhibiting signs of spontaneous motion, and multiply- 
ing their species in the usual manner. Some of these are even of a 
complicated structure, much beyond what might, d priori, be expected 
as the result of the first attempt of inorganic matter to enter into the 
realms of organic life. The subject has been so frequently discussed, 
that I need not trouble you with the details of the arguments which 
have led the most eminent naturalists to believe that these creatures 
are not really spontaneously engendered, but that they are derived 
from minute ova which, are present in the air, and which, when placed 
under circumstances favourable to their development, burst into life : 
in the same way as the egg undergoes those changes which convert 
its contents into a bird, when placed under the influence of the animal 
heat of the parent. But even if this view of the matter be not 
correct, the case is not really altered ; for, after all, the Infusoria are 
never detected except in vegetable and animal infusions, which neces- 
sarily presuppose the existence of organic life." 

But it is one thing to demolish the* theory and statements of an 
antagonist, and another to erect a structure in their place. However 
completely Spallanzani had demonstrated the faults and untrust- 
worthiness of Needham's results, he had not established the opposite 
doctrine, and to many it seemed that the very conditions under which 
his experimentation was conducted, were sufficient to prevent the 
development of life. But the work begun by Schulze and Schwann 
and ended by Pasteur apparently has supplied what was wanting in 
Spallanzani's researches. The evidence is thus admirably summed by 
Professor Huxley. : * — 

"It is demonstrable, that a fluid eminently fit for the development 
* Address (Presidential) to British Association at Liverpool, 1870, p. .15. 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER III. 



231 



of the lowest forms of life, but which contains neither germs, nor 
any protein compound, gives rise to living things in great abundance, 
if it is exposed to ordinary air; while no such development takes 
place, if the air with which it is in contact is mechanically freed from 
the solid particles, which ordinarily float in it and which maybe made 
visible by appropriate means. 

"It is demonstrable, that the great majority of these particles are 
destructible by heat, and that some of them are germs, or living 
particles, capable of giving rise to the same forms of life as those 
which appear when the fluid is exposed to unpurified air. 

" It is demonstrable, that inoculation of the experimental fluid with 
a drop of liquid known to contain living particles, gives rise to the 
same phenomena as exposure to unpurified air. 

" And it is further certain that these living particles are so minute 
that the 1 assumption of their suspension m ordinary air presents not 
the slightest difficulty. On the contrary, considering their lightness 
and the wide diffusion of the organisms which produce them, it is 
impossible to conceive that they should not be suspended in the 
atmosphere in myriads." 

The experimental means by which these facts are proved may be 
briefly stated : — 

I. The air contains solid particles. Professor Tyndall has shown, 
as all who have read " Dust and Disease " know to their own dis- 
comfort, that the purest common air, when submitted to a beam of 
electric light, renders the track of that beam visible. Ergo, it must 
contain solid particles capable of scattering light. 

II. These particles are mostly destructible by heat, or may be 
mechanically strained off. He has shown this by the fact that 
common air which has passed through a red-hot 'tube, or through a 
filter of cotton-wool, will no longer render the track of the electric 
beam visible. 

III. Many of these particles are germs. Schulze and Schwann 
proved that when air is passed through red-hot tubes, then through a 
fluid which is capable of affording a nidus to the germs, if present, no 
development of life takes place. Similarly Schrceder established the 
same fact by using a strainer of cotton-wool. Further, Pasteur gave 
an additional proof by microscopical examination, as well as by a 
direct experiment. He passed air through gun-cotton, dissolved this 
in ether ; and in the collodion germs were clearly recognizable. Also 
he plunged a piece of cotton-wool through which air had been strained 
into an experimental fluid. This fluid soon swarmed with forms of 
life. 



232 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



IV. The experimental fluid may be inoculated by simple exposure 
to air as well as by any fluids known to contain living forms ; e.g., if 
the fluid be placed in an open vessel, living forms soon make their 
appearance. Yet supposing the aperture of the vessel, instead of 
pointing vertically upwards, be turned obliquely or downwards, the 
fluid will remain clear for an indefinite time. Similarly a drop of an 
infusion containing living forms added to the experimental fluid soon 
causes it to swarm with life. The forms that appear are the same in 
either case. 

V. The experimental fluid cannot give rise itself to these forms. 
It is known as Pasteur's solution, and consists of water, ammonium, 
tartrate, sugar, and yeast ash. Hence there is no organic matter in 
it. If proper care be taken, it may be kept for an indefinite time. 

VI. The germs are so minute that in many cases, even when known 
to be present, they are scarcely visible to the highest microscopic 
powers. They must be universally diffused, as any organic infusion 
left exposed soon swarms with the forms to which they give rise. 

Such an array of facts, proved experimentally over and over again, 
must convince the most tenacious sceptic, and he may feel inclined to 
agree with the opinion expressed in the following passage from Sir B. 
Brodie : *— 

" Crites. Then, if I understand you rightly, you have arrived 
at these conclusions. First, that there was a time when this earth 
was not in a fit state for the maintenance of either animal or 
vegetable life. Secondly, that in its present condition there is no 
evidence of any law being in operation which would account for any 
living beings being called into existence except as the offspring of 
other living beings which previously existed ; and that from these 
premises we cannot fail to arrive at this further conclusion, that the 
first introduction of life on earth must have been by some special act 
of the creative power, of which we have no experience at present. 

" Eubulus. I suspect that this, really and truly, is all we actually 
know on the subject." 

Notwithstanding this apparently irresistible amount of evidence, 
the question of abiogenesis has recently been revived by Dr. C. 
Bastian in a well-known book, " The Beginnings of Life." Dr. 
Bastian believes that he has demonstrated the origin of living organ- 
isms from organic infusions as well as from solutions of salts contain- 
ing no organic matter : nay, even more wonderful facts than these 
which it is unnecessary to specify. His experiments are so numerous, 
his assertions and figures so clear and definite, and his reputation for 
* Loc. cit. pp. 199-200. 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER III. 233 



previous good scientific work once so high, that the book has caused 
no small stir and discussion. Could Dr. Bastian's facts be only 
established, they would inevitably revolutionize the whole science of 
Biology. 

However, the same fate which has overtaken his predecessors has 
befallen Dr. Bastian himself. A nearly universal verdict of "Not 
proven " has been returned : and not only is the accuracy of his 
experimentation denied, but even worse accusations have been 
brought. To enter into details of his experiments would require too 
much space, but it may not be uninteresting to detail some of the 
peculiarities and difficulties which attend on the investigation of such 
a subject as Spontaneous Generation. 

At the very threshold of the inquiry stands a grand difficulty. 
Strange as it may seem, it is nevertheless true, that notwithstanding 
the many years, the immense labour bestowed by illustrious men on 
this subject, next to nothing is known of the relations existing 
between the lowest forms of life, animal or vegetable (especially the 
latter), as well as their germs, and varying physical and chemical 
conditions. Heat, light, cold and darkness, alkalies and acids with 
other chemical compounds, one would imagine to be not without their 
influence. Yet what this influence may be in a given case, none can 
tell. Enough is known in the way of a few detached facts to make 
it certain that these agents have very decided effects. It might be 
thought that any one who wished to attack the problem of Spontaneous 
Generation anew would first try to obtain some connected knowledge 
on this point. Indeed, until it has been cleared up somewhat, it is 
not very evident what good Experimentation on Heterogenesis can do. 
It is much as if a chemist were to throw a handful of stuff (what he 
knew not) into a crucible, and then expect a valuable result. It can 
scarcely be doubted that many of these lower organisms live and 
grow under conditions which a priori might seem incompatible with 
vitality. 

It is clear also that the work of one experimenter ought to be 
such as may admit of repetition by another with the same result. 
Now no one who attempts the study of this subject of Spontaneous 
Generation, can fail to be struck with the immense mass of con- 
flicting evidence. Some mischievous spirit appears to have purposely 
thrown confusion over the whole. Facts are alternately stated and 
denied. It is very hard to be sure of the right road, even for an 
experienced person. 

Another point relates to the value of the evidence when obtained. 
It can scarcely be doubted that out of a given number of experiments 



234 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



undertaken to establish a case of Heterogenesis or Archebiosis, great 
value should be attached to the negative evidence afforded by those 
that disprove the supposed fact. A little consideration will show the 
reason. The precautions to be taken against the intrusion of germs are 
innumerable : a slight exposure to the air, accidental contact of an 
unheated rod or tube, or neglect of some other particulars may 
inoculate the experimental fluid. Hence even with care the chances 
are many in favour of some such accidental intrusion, and great 
caution should always be exercised before an affirmative result can 
be regarded as firmly established. 

And further there is the experimentalist himself to be taken into 
account. The task requires an intimate knowledge of many minute 
organisms, and the different forms they assume; an acquaintance, 
wide and accurate, with various experimental methods ; a clear view 
of the end and the various precautions required to attain that end ; a 
mind ready to contrive, prone to doubt and to hesitate, rather than to 
be convinced. Men vary much in the amount of what is scientifically 
termed their personal equation, and one difficulty in accepting the 
results of a piece of work is the danger of misplaced confidence. 

As was said before, Dr. Bastian's attempt to demonstrate the reality 
of Spontaneous Generation has been a failure. His experiments have 
been repeated, and failed to give the like results in the hands of 
competent men. Witness the following quotation from a careful review 
of his book in the Microscopical Journal.* It relates to the now 
celebrated cheese and turnip solution. 

''Nevertheless in consequence of the interest which Dr. Bastian's 
work has excited, we have made the experiment (and that repeatedly) 
as directed by him. This is not the occasion on which to give the 
details of the experiments in question. It will, however, perhaps add 
some value to the remarks which it has been our duty to make when 
we state that, carefully following Dr. Bastian's directions, using at the 
same time great care as to cleanliness and due boiling, we have obtained 
results which in every single instance, out of more than forty tubes 
closed on four separate occasions, simply contradict Dr. Bastian. We 
believe, then, that Dr. Bastian's last dogma in archebiosis, — his belief 
in turnip solution with a fragment of cheese — must be placed in the 
same category as his colloidal urea, his spontaneously generated 
bog- moss, his fungi born in crystals, his unmistakable processes of 
heterogenesis, and his ' watching ' and ' experimentation ' in general." 

The reviewer proceeds to question whether Dr. Bastian has even the 
knowledge requisite for so delicate an investigation. It would be 
* Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, January, 1873, p. 74. 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER III 



235 



supposed that he was intimately acquainted with various microscopical 
structures ; but we read,* " Professor Huxley gives a contribution 
towards the determination of the personal value in Dr. Bastian's 
researches. ' He (Dr. Bastian) will recollect that he wrote to me 
asking permission to bring for my examination certain preparations 
of organic structures, which he declared he had clear and positive 
evidence to prove to have been developed in his closed and digested 
tubes. Dr. Bastian will remember that when the first of these wonderful 
specimens was put under my microscope I told him at once that it was 
nothing but a fragment of the leaf of the common bog-moss (Sphagnum), 
and he will recollect that I had to fetch Schacht's book " Die Pflan- 
zenzelle " and show him a figure which fitted very well with what we 
had under the microscope before I could get him to listen to my 
suggestion, and that only actual comparison with Sphagnum, after he 
had left my house, forced him to admit the astounding blunder which 
he had made.' 

" Of these three pieces of evidence, the last is the most important, 
for, whilst it places us on our guard with regard to Dr. Bastian's 
accuracy generally, it at the same time furnishes a key to the explana- 
tion of a number of his experiments in which, according to that pre- 
cipitate discoverer, ' organisms ' were found on opening tubes containing 
infusions which had been boiled and sealed hermetically." 

How then are we to sum up the case ? for or against Dr. Bastian ? 
Can any thoughtful person admit the conclusions of one apparently so 
unfit for his task ? The best answer is in the words of his Beviewer.f 

" Briefly it is to be said that the chapters in this book on hetero- 
genesis, contain a reckless attempt to revolutionize biological doctrine 
without a single demonstration of fact to justify it, even if it be ad- 
mitted that the observations and drawings cited are accurate. Revolu- 
tion in science as in politics can only be justified by success — a wanton 
attempt in either sphere must deserve the severest condemnation. Dr. 
Bastian by his exhibition of himself in dealing with heterogenesis 
writes himself down as incapable — as inadmissible in the character of 
a witness in a scientific investigation. The Sphagnum delusion is 
now explained, for it becomes evident that we have to deal with an 
individual with whom such delusions are no rare exceptions. 

" We should indeed be sorry to believe that Dr. Bastian is himself 
aware of the injury which he is doing to the cause of science, by 
promulgating these rash assertions as to the beginnings and changes 
of living things ; we altogether decline to entertain the notion that he 
is himself conscious of the baselessness and flimsy character of his 
* Loc. cit p. 64. f Loc - cit - PP- 69 " 70 ' 



236 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



startling discoveries, and is nevertheless willing at the expense of 
injury to the cause of intellectual progress, to obtain for himself a 
temporary notoriety. On the contrary, we believe that he is under the 
influence of a delusion, similar to those which from time to time obtain 
notoriety in the case of ' spiritualists/ ' circle-squarers,' and such victims 
of belief in the marvellous. The origin and mode of growth of such 
delusions form a very interesting psychological study, and it is only 
when we have obtained a proper conception of Dr. Bastian as an 
abnormal psychological phenomenon that we can hope rightly to 
appreciate the whole of the statements made in his book. 

" Delusion and self-deception are much commoner than the world 
is generally accustomed to consider them. In a very well-known and 
often quoted remark we have a recognition of the wide-spread occurrence 
of delusions and an attempt to explain their origin ; the saying to which 
we allude is, ' The wish was father to the thought.' There cannot be 
the least doubt that men are unconsciously hindered or misdirected in 
their estimate of fact by previously formed desires.. Such a desire acts 
on the mind like the suggestion of the mesmerist to an individual who 
has allowed himself to be brought into the hypnotic condition. In this 
way many misconceptions and strange contradictions of testimony are 
to be explained." 

The importance of the subject is sufficient apology for so long a 
quotation. But our quotations allow us to draw one conclusion; that 
so far as Spontaneous Generation is concerned human knowledge is 
exactly in statu quo. Up to this time there is no evidence, worth 
consideration, that establishes a single good case of heterogenesis ; 
nay, rather all evidence points to the conclusion that Protoplasm is 
invariably derived from pre-existing Protoplasm, at least under existing 
conditions. Then too there is no fact known which enables us to say 
how Protoplasm arose in the first instance. On this point we are in 
the darkness of complete scientific ignorance. The whole discussion 
may be well closed by a striking passage from Professor Huxley's 
before quoted address.* 

" But though I cannot express this conviction of mine too strongly, 
I must carefully guard myself against the supposition that I intend to 
suggest that no such thing as abiogenesis ever has taken place in the 
past, or ever will take place in the future. With organic chemistry, 
molecular physics, and physiology yet in their infancy, and every 
day making prodigious strides, I think it would be the height of pre- 
sumption for any man to say that the conditions under which matter 
assumes the properties we call ' vital ' may not, some day, be artificially 
* Loc. cit. pp. 16-17. 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER III. 237 



brought together. All I feel justified in affirming is, that I see no 
reason for believing that the feat has been performed yet. 

" And, looking back through the prodigious vista of the past, I find 
no record of the commencement of life, and therefore I am devoid of 
any means of forming a definite conclusion as to the conditions of its 
appearance. Belief, in the scientific sense of the word, is a serious 
matter, and needs strong foundations. To say, therefore, in the 
admitted absence of evidence, that I have any belief as to the mode 
in which the existing forms of life have originated, would be using 
words in a wrong sense. But expectation is permissible where belief 
is not ; and if it were given me to look beyond the abyss of geologically 
recorded time to the still more remote period when the earth was passing 
through physical and chemical conditions, which it can no more see 
again than a man can recal his infancy, I should expect to be a witness 
of the evolution of living protoplasm from not living matter. I should 
expect to see it appear under forms of great simplicity, endowed, like 
existing Fungi, with the power of determining the formation of new 
protoplasm from such matters as ammonium carbonates, oxalates and 
tartrates, alkaline and earthy phosphates, and water, without the aid 
of light. That is the expectation to which analogical reasoning leads 
me ; but I beg you once more to recollect that I nave no right to call 
my opinion anything but an act of philosophical faith." 

Obviously, as Professor Huxley points out, between philosophical 
faith and philosophical knowledge there is a chasm to be bridged over. 
But should the hypothesis ever be verified, it would make no difference 
to the reasonings of the "Natural Theologian — since the concurrence of 
conditions necessary for the production of the phenomenon would 
manifestly ensue upon some definite though recondite law, at present 
beyond our ken. 



I.— ON MATERIALISM. 

The ambiguities attaching to this term were mentioned in a foot- 
note on our very first page. Since that note was written, the tendency 
of scientific men has been to increase the number of hypotheses 
respecting the nature and laws of the material world, and by con- 
sequence to multiply the shades of signification conveyed by the 
word Materialism. 

So long as such distinctions are confined to the territory of pure 
science, whether that of the Physicist or of the Biologist, they do not 



238 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



in themselves affect the religious (or ethico-religious) position of any 
thinker ; and need not, therefore, occasion any trouble to the Natural 
Theologian. But it is worth while to observe how rashly, on account 
of some such scientific discussion, a writer is said to be a Materialist 
or no Materialist, by persons who (understanding little or nothing of 
science themselves) drag the unhappy author outside the pale of his 
own domain, and affix to him some religious or irreligious epithet 
which he has neither desired nor deserved. 

The philosophic idealist often escapes; he is pronounced "no 
Materialist," because he doubts the substantive existence of Matter, 
yet he may and often does hold that the ideal thing he calls his soul, 
has a life inextricably bound up with that other ideal thing he calls 
his body, and must perish with it, never to live again. 

We may add the useful remark that so far as Ethico-religious 
Materialism is concerned it is much more easily tested by the Doctrine of 
Soul than the Doctrine of Body. For example, consistent Materializers 
will always maintain that the reasoning human soul differs from the 
animal soul of brutes, not in quality, but in quantity. Dr. L. Biichner 
(sometimes called a " crass Materialist ") makes this assertion re- 
peatedly, and explains it by adding — ' 'Man has no absolute advantage 
above the animal; his mental superiority being merely relative. There 
is not one intellectual faculty which belongs to man exclusively ; his 
superiority is merely the result of the greater intensity, and the 
proper combination, of his capacities. The enlarged human faculties 
are, as we have already seen, the natural and necessary result of the 
higher and more perfect development of his material organ of 
thought." * 

* This quotation is from his Matter and Force, Chapter XIX. Biichner is 
never tired of emphasizing the Materialism of thought. In an address prefixed 
to his tenth Edition, speaking of the hypothesis of Mind acting on Brain he calls 
it " the tragi-comic pianoforte theory," and regrets that there should be so 
many " human pianofortes out of tune in the world." Biichner's own Materialism 
is outspoken, as may "be judged from the following propositions : — 

1. Spirit without Body is unimaginable. 

2. The Soul brings with it " no innate intuitions " ; and 

3. It is not an ens per se, but a product of external influences. 

4. There is no individual immortality nor personal continuance after death. 

5. The Soul's knowledge relates only to earthly things. 

6. It becomes a person by being opposed to earthly individualities. 

7. (Adopted from C. Vogt) " The soul .... is a product of the development 
of the brain ; just as muscular activity is a product of muscular development, 
and secretion a product of glandular development. So soon as the substances 
composing the brain are aggregated in a similar form, will they exhibit the same 
functions. . . . Mental activity changes with the periods of life, and ceases 
altogether at death." 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER III. 



239 



Turning to a more refined species of Materialism, we find a similar 
value always placed on the dogma that whatever differences exist 
between man and brute, they amount to a distinction not of kind, but 
only of degree. The consequences hence deduced are of the very great- 
est importance, and they run much as follows. No one will venture 
to assert that the power of what has been hastily called Volition is, 
or can be, an endowment of mere animal nature. We do not lay 
upon the tiger (as we do popularly lay upon the tyrant) a moral 
responsibility on account of his savage appetites. Their indulgence 
does not flow from any reasoning faculty of Will. His cruelty is the 
movement of automatic instincts, governed by laws like those which 
rule over the inanimate world ; more complicated probably, but no- 
ways different in their essence. The fall of a stone, and the spring of 
a tiger, are both consequences of determining laws inherent in their 
several modes of existence, and moving both as machinery is moved 
by a steam engine. Now, a difference in degree only, argues no 
difference in those essential laws which rule equally the greater and 

Biichner's writings are sufficiently known in this country. In America they 
are food for the million. 

Proposition No. 6 is particularly noticeable because it re-echoes the fallacy of 
Locke (see page 182-3 ante) on personal identity. By opposition to earthly 
individualities we do not " become" persons, but the sense of antagonism between 
ourselves and other externalities (both men and things), sharpens every day 
our belief in our own personality, and furnishes its daily verification. 

The grossness of this writer's Materialism does not hinder him from using 
the word " soul " on almost every page ; and in one of his more recent publica- 
tions he is candid enough to acknowledge that this old-fashioned entity is not 
yet quite improved off the face of the Earth. He says : — " Just the properties 
of the human mind and the impossibility of explaining them, were from the 
most ancient times one of the main supports of spiritualism and theological 
systems. True, their explanation is still wanting." Biichner, of course, looks for 
the speedy elimination of " Soul " proper, on exactly the same grounds which 
underlie his own whole system. Mental activity and Brain go together (he 
argues), as Force and Matter go together. It may be answered, that every 
practical reasoner knows the danger of arguing from cone omit ancies, however 
well-established, to Causality ; and the risk is evidently much increased when 
a like argument is used to Identity. Besides, if Mental activity is resolvable 
into Brain, why should not Matter be likewise resolved into Force ? Thus the 
whole Universe, inanimate and animated, material and psychical, becomes 
Force. The chain would run in this manner : Mind = Brain = Matter = Force. 
But how are we to know that Force must be all of one kind and descrip- 
tion ? Or. again, why may not . the concomitancies be rather resolved some 
other way ; — e.g., Matter (including Brain)= Force= Mind ? Thus Materialism 
might slide into Idealism, Pantheism, or even Theism ; since in some shape or 
other Mind would form and sustain the Universe. Our last citation of Biichner 
is taken from a New York Edition of his Materialism, p. 19. 



240 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



the less. The giant and the dwarf are alike subject to the same laws 
of body and mind ; and man is (as we have seen) but a mentally 
taller brute. The tyrant, therefore, resembles the tiger ; the human 
animal is moved as the other animals are moved, and, like them, is 
subject to the determining law, just as the lifeless world is so subjected. 
In plain words, then, this human machine is moved like other machines. 
What we call Reason, spontaneity, volition, are, when analysed, no 
exceptions to the law-governed mechanism of the world we live in. 
Our motives make us, not we our motives. The faculty we exercise 
under the name of Choice, is really neither more nor less than a 
determined, unalterable, impulsion ; the result of a mechanical law. 
And this law has formed and now constitutes the Universe.* 

* In other words, that kind of law which pervades the lowest sphere of 
Nature is conceived as dominant over the highest also. The whole Universe is 
submitted to its iron rule. There is of Man's Mind as well as of the flagstone 
with which he paves his streets, one account, one law, one science, one 
philosophy ; nay, strangely enough, as we shall see further on, one religion ! 
The law of stocks and stones is supreme, it rules alike Man's present and his 
future, and ought to be the sole object of his veneration. 

Positivism, as is well known, makes many sciences and classifies them by an 
ascending scale of Laws. " La Philosophic Positive," writes Littre {Paroles, 
p. 10) . . . . " apercevant que, suivant la vraie conception, ou la matiere n'est pas 
separable de ses proprietes, le mot de materialisme n^avait plus d'emploi 
philosophique qu'en histoire, elle l'a renouvele, et s'en est servie pour caracte- 
riser l'intrusion de la methode de toute science inferieure dans la science 
superieure." 

If Littre had said, " the intrusion of the lowest into the highest," he would 
have rightly characterized the systems we are describing. 

Von Feuchtersleben puts the practical state of the question thus : — " All we 
can say is, that an intellectual world reveals itself to us, by the law of the true, 
the good, and the beautiful, and that a physical world manifests itself by those 
laws which act in space and time. What lies beyond these laws, as it were the 
substance of both worlds, we know not ; we only call that of the physical 
world, matter or body in the abstract, that of the super-physical, we call 
spirit (Geist), and must never forget that hereby we have only pronounced an 
abstraction. 

" But now we ask further, wherein does this higher law manifest itself to us, 
as the physical law does in the material world ? Nowhere but in man, and in 
him only through the medium of his cultivated and refined reason. What we 
feel, what we remember, nay, the very inmost sensations of our individual 
existence, may be referred to the world which surrounds us. Thought alone, 
exalted to the highest degree shows us another world. We are ourselves there- 
fore not spirit, but we watch, as it were, what we call by that name, and which 
manifests itself to us only by its laws. (Est Deus in nobis.) Man, therefore, 
should be the link which connects the two worlds ; and this is the problem, 
this is the enigma, which can never be solved." He adds in a note : " Materialism, 
that is, the view which will not allow the separation of the intellectual principle 
from the corporeal, but looks upon the former as a higher power of the latter, 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER III. 



241 



Befined Materialism proceeds to ask in the next place, what more 
do we know of Matter than its rigid undeviating reign of Law ? — The 
great Globe itself obeys the same Laws as the falling stone : they 
pervade and direct the mechanism of the starry heavens. Life does 
not exempt either vegetable or animal from the same rule of law. We 
have just seen that Mankind is not so made to differ, as to permit a 
plea of exemption from the same empire. Ascend from Protoplasm to 
the highest human intelligence, — one heritage devolves through brute 
to man. The same mechanical law accounts for the "Psychogeny " 
of both. Mechanical Law, in its ramifications, is (as has been said) 
all we really know of Matter. It now turns out that all Mind has 
been developed by this same ever-ramifying law ; may be analyzed 
back into its elements ; is most truly expressed by its symbols ; and 
can never be exempted from its determinations. Mind, therefore, and 
Matter are resolvable into this sole unity — the Law of ultimate 
mechanical movement and impulsion. 

We have called this system a refined Materialism; but another 
name for one of its most influential shapes has appeared and made 
considerable progress, particularly on the continent of Europe. This 
name is Monism ; and is intended to declare that every other belief 
must be at best a Dualism.* 

not only explains nothing, but makes the enigma still more obscure. Medical 
Psychology, Ed. Sydenham, pp. 15-16. 

* Compare footnote (c) pp. 56-7 ante. This whole theory is dreamlike. — a 
sort of romance or revel of a half -metaphysical, half -materializing imaginatior . 
The following rather long extract from Haeckel's book will shew the hypothesis 
on its most poetical side. But alas for its prose, and its plain practical applica- 
tion ! " It is indeed," he writes, "not difficult to arrive through an unprejudiced 
consideration of facts, at a clear conviction that Theism, which has its origin in 
Mythology, and which, under the name of " Pure Monotheism," rules the 
civilized peoples of modern day, and plays even now so conspicuous a part in 
organic Morphology as the Myth of Creation, is in fact not Monotheism but 
Amphitheism. This predominant religion was Monotheism only so long as 
all Natural Phenomena were, without any exception, taken to be the direct 
result of the personal divine government of the world, — only so long as all 
inorganic or organic Phenomena — from the blowing of the wind and the 
rolling of the thunder, to the light of the sun and the course of the stars ; 
from the flowery fragrance of plants and the wing of the bird, to the Mind- 
formation of Man and the development-history of peoples ; — were direct actions 
of a monarchical, personal Creator. But when modern Natural Science demon- 
strated that the whole realm of inorganic Nature was governed by fixed, 
unvarying laws of Nature ; when Physics and Chemistry reduced Abiology to 
mathematical formulae, then the half of his realm was wrested from the personal 
Creator, and there remained to him organic Nature alone, and even the half of 
this was next set free by recent Physiology, so that organic Morphology alone 
remained subject to the personal, arbitrary government of the mediatised ruler 

16 



242 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



What then is the true human meaning of this Monistic creed ? 
Our souls (if we have souls), possess the image, not of Absolute 

of the world. Thus, out of the earlier Monotheism grew up that full-blown 
Amphitheism which at present rules the modern Cosmology of civilized peoples ; 
and which appears in Science as the thoroughly perverted Dualism against 
which we have contended most determinedly in our General Morphology. For, 
what else is this Dualism but the battle between two Gods of fundamentally 
distinct natures ? On the one hand, we see in the realm of Abiology, dominated 
by Mechanism, the exclusive sovereignty of unvarying and necessary Nature- 
laws, of the avajKri, which at all times and in all places constantly remains one 
and the same. 

" On the other hand, in the realm of Biology (which is still governed by 
Teleology), and especially in the realm of organic Morphology, we see the 
ridiculous arbitrary government of a personal and thoroughly humanlike 
Creator, who vainly wearies himself with endeavouring to create a ' perfect ' 
Organism, and constantly rejects the earlier creations of a ' former age,' in 
that he is continually setting up new and improved editions in their places. 
We have already shewn, in our sixth chapter, why we must entirely reject 
this pitiful idea of a personal Creator (Vol. I. p. 173). It is in fact a degrada- 
tion of the pure God-Idea. Most men picture to themselves this ' beloved God ' 
as being thoroughly humanlike : he is in their eyes an architect, who is engaged 
in carrying on the construction of the world according to some previously 
rejected plan ; but who never gets done with it, because during the process 
of completion, he is always hitting on new and better ideas ; he is a Stage- 
manager, who directs the earth like a great puppet-play, and generally knows 
how to handle with tolerable skill the numerous threads by which he manages 
the hearts of men : he is a half -deprived king who only rules over the inorganic 
realm conditionally, and according to firmly fixed laws ; rules on the other 
hand over the organic realm absolutely as patriarchal land-father, who in this 
domain allows himself to be led into a daily alteration of his world-plan by 
the wishes and prayers of his own children, among whom the most perfect 
Vertebrates are those principally favoured. 

" Let us turn away from this unworthy Anthropomorphism of modern 
Dogmatics, which degrade God himself into an aerial Vertebrate, and let us 
look on the contrary at the infinitely higher God-Idea to which Monism 
conducts us ; in that it demonstrates the Unity op God in the whole of 
Nature, and abolishes the antithesis of an organic and inorganic God which 
sows the germ of a death-agony in the heart of that predominating Amphi- 
theism. Our Cosmology knows only One Sole God, and this Almighty God 
rules the whole of Nature without exception. We contemplate his operation in 
all phenomena of every description. To it the whole inorganic material world 
is subject, and so too the whole world of organization. If each body in vacuo 
falls fifteen feet in the first second ; if three atoms of Oxygen to one of Sulphur 
always produce Sulphuric Acid ; if the angle which one columnar surface of 
rock crystal makes with the neighbouring one is always 120° ; then, these 
phenomena are the immediate operations of God, equally with the blossoms of 
plants, the movements of animals, the thoughts of Mankind. We all exist by 
'God's grace'; the stone as well as the water, the Kadiolarian as well as the 
pine tree, the gorilla as much as the Emperor of China. 

"This Cosmology which contemplates God's spikit and power in all 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER ' III. 243 



Being and Personality, but of abstract Fate, and rayless, eyeless 
Necessity. We live machines ; those supposed moralities we commonly 

NATURAL phenomena is alone worthy of His all-comprehensive greatness ; 
only when we refer all forces and all phenomena of movement, all forms and 
properties of matter, to God, as the Author of all things, do we attain to that 
human intuition of God, and veneration of God, which really befits his im- 
measurable greatness. For ' in Him we live and move and have our being.' 
Thus the philosophy of Nature becomes in fact Theology. The worship of 
Nature becomes that true worship of God of which Goethe says : — ' Certainly 

THERE IS NO MORE BEAUTIFUL VENERATION OP GOD, THAN THAT WHICH 
ARISES FROM COMMUNION WITH NATURE IN OUR OWN BREASTS.' 

" God is Almighty ;. he is the sole Author, the prime Cause of all things ; 
that is, in other words, God is the Universal Causal Law. God is 
absolutely perfect ; he can never act otherwise than perfectly rightly, there- 
fore he can never act arbitrarily or freely ; that is to say, God is Necessity. 
God is the sum of all forces ; so also, therefore, of all Matter. Every con- 
ception of God, which separates him from Matter, opposes to him a sum of 
forces which are not of divine Nature ; every such conception leads to Amphi- 
theism, consequently to Polytheism. 

" Since Monism demonstrates the Unity of the whole op Nature, it 
proves, likewise, that only One God exists, and that this God manifests 
himself in the collective phenomena of Nature. Since Monism grounds the 
collective phenomena of organic and inorganic Nature on the Universal 
Causal Law, and displays them as the effects of ' active causes,' it shews 
at the same time, that God is the necessary Cause op all things and 
is the Law itself. Since Monism acknowledges no other beside the divine 
Forces in Nature, since it recognizes all laws of Nature as divine, it raises itself 
to the greatest and most elevated conception of which man, as the most perfect 
of all animals, is capable, to the conception of the Unity of God and 
Nature. 

' Was war' ein Gott, der nur von aussen stiesse, 
Im Kreis das All am Finger laufen liesse ! 
Ihm ziemt's, die Welt im Innern zu bewegen r 
Natur in Sich, Sich in Natur zu hegen, 
So dass, was in Ihm lebt und webt und ist, 
Nie Seine Kraft, nie Seinen Geist vermisst.' " 
Haeckel's Generelle Morphologic der Organismen. Vol. II. Book viii. Chap. 30. 

No one who reads the latter part of this quotation will doubt that Haeckel is 
a refined, or, in other words, a metaphysical Materialist. That he has produced 
an effect in materializing circles is evident ; witness the following passages from 
BUchner " the crass." " To any one who does not stubbornly and obstinately 
cling to old prejudices, this new Cosmology which has superseded the dualism 
of former systems of philosophy and thought, must appear as clear, simple, free 
of dualism, easily intelligible and perfectly satisfactory. On account of this very 
antagonism to the dualistic character of the speculative philosophy of the past, 
I should like best to designate the philosophy of Materialism as monistic 
philosophy, or philosophy of unity ; and the cosmology founded upon it as 
monism, in accordance with the suggestion of Professor Haeckel. . . . Since the 
indestructibility of matter, as previously described, has found its necessary 



244 



the Philosophy of natural theology. 



miscall our Volitions, spring out from beneath the moving wheels. We 
die, as machines go to pieces when the wheels get out of gear ; and 
no other account need be asked of the broken clock-work. Here lies 
a man, close beside him moulders a dog. They are now what they 
always were, — copartners in the same inexorable destiny. 

Inexorable: — yes; for., standing beside these two graves, we see 
where our higher Philosophy and our religious hopes alike lie buried. 
What is Mechanical Law to us ? The antithesis of Providence ; 
therefore, with the edict which proclaims its sway, all our prayers 
are ended. And what is Man, compared with the equal dog who 
bears him • company ? One event befals them both ; yet we may 
ask whether before or after that one event, Man has or can have any 
preeminence above the beast ? Let him be spoken of as statesman, 
warrior, orator, poet, painter, sculptor, musician ; none of these 
epithets convey any truth. He may possibly be a speaking, striking, 
weaving, drawing, colouring, sound-producing machine. But the 
Designer of the Universe and the human artist have disappeared 
together. What we took for the author of immortal works, an 
original genius, an inspired hero of his kind, ".a man and a leader 
of men," was a piece of wheelwork driven by unalterable law. There 
was the same " must be " to him as to his dog. There never was and 
never could have l)een, nor yet ever will be any essential difference ; 
two spirits are gone downwards to the earth. 

Man has not even the sad preeminence of Sin. Where can he find 
or make room for wrong-doing, when impelling Mechanism determines 
all ? And where Sin is not, Repentance cannot come. 

Hope is shut out along with Remorse and its unmeaning pains. 
Man has no ladder of ascent left him; and why should he wish to 
climb ? If there were such a ladder as Jacob dreamed, its base 
must rest on lifeless Law, and at its summit there would only be 
this same Law, enthroned and Deified. 

Thus, when the primaeval Nebula arose in Space (how or why it 

complement in the indestructibility of force ; and since the separation of force 
and matter has been recognized as a mere abstraction and existing only in 
our thoughts : it is really impossible to speak any longer of Materialism as a 
system which derives everything from matter only. Otherwise we might just 
as well speak of Dynamism, that is of a system that derives everything from 
force (dynamis). But in reality both are identical and inseparable ; and there- 
fore a philosophy built upon those ideas cannot be better designated than as 
monistic, or a philosophy of unity." {Materialism, ut supra p. 24.) This last 
phrase is more metaphysical than Biichner's wont ; but S. T. Coleridge, if alive, 
would tell him that what the world really wants, is a " Philosophy of Multeity 
in Unity." To annihilate the Manifold is to destroy our sole knowledge of the One. 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER III. 



245 



arose is not told us), its vapoury Law contained all that is, and all 
that can be : — Plato and Shakespeare, Moses and Str John glimmered 
in its tremulous twilight. Worlds inanimate and animate scintillated 
from its fires. What we call Heaven and Earth are its dumb children, 
its law-determined Evolutions. Thou and I, reader, have harboured 
strange fancies ; — let them go ; — we are but parts of the Whole ; and 
the Whole is a mechanical Unity. Now that we find ourselves dis- 
abused and illuminated, our great difficulty may perhaps be to fall 
down, Strauss- like, and worship this Universum. Can such worship, 
or such an object of worship, bless and satisfy our high aspiring 
race ? Eyes that have watched for Righteousness, hearts that have 
yearned after it, let the answer come from you! - In. this answer 
lives or dies the two-fold belief of the Natural Theologian, the two- 
fold hope resulting to Mankind. The belief, that is to say, in a 
personal Immortality, the belief in a personal G-od. 

It may now seem plain that the readiest test of moral or religious 
Materialism is its doctrine, not of Body but of Soul. There is no 
charm in such a word as Matter to differentiate the character of a 
philosophy. Looking at the material world, any thinker may be a 
Natural Realist or a Pure Idealist ; yet being either or neither, he may 
materialize, or the reverse,, so far as Morals and Religion are con- 
cerned. The simple question ought rather to be;. Is man mechanically 
governed by the Law which rules the world of Abiology (the lifeless 
inorganic world), or is he, can he become, a Law unto himself?* 

* It was previously intimated that the idealizing . philosopher often escapes 
ethical censure more easily than he deserves. Idealism may, or may not, be a 
bar to irreligious materialism. For example : — " The materialism of Strauss 
was not inconsistent with an idealism of the Hegelian type ; for, as he showed 
in his last work, the question between logically consistent idealists and mate- 
rialists who carry out their principles is, at its roots, one of names and terms 
rather than of antagonistic principles." Pall Mall Gazette for Feb.. 11, 
1874. The Idealism referred to, is that which identifies pure Being with 
Impersonal Thought. Now Berkeley's idealism culminated with the Divine 
Personality, through whose omnipresence and spiritual subsistence those 
properties or modes of existence, called material, are realized to us, who, 
together with all the world, exist in and by Him. Yet, as far as Berkeley's 
argument rests upon the common ground of idealistic reasoning, it is ap- 
proachable by the Atheist or the Sceptic. Of Hobbes a reviewer has lately 
remarked : " He clearly demonstrated that the secondary qualities of body 
are purely subjective, and his language is almost strong enough to lead 
us to believe that he would have gone a long way with Berkeley. For he 
claims to have proved that ' as in vision, so also in conceptions that arise 
from the other senses, the subject of their inherence is not the object but 
the sentient.'" Westminster Review, April, 1871, p. 387.. 

The truth from which so many theories, physical and metaphysical, branch 



246 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



It would be unfair to omit impressing upon the reader's mind that 
physical science per se is by no means answerable for ethico-religious 
Materialism. As a question of fact, it does not seem established that 
students of Nature, whether physicists or biologists, have, as such, 
been the chief offenders. On the contrary, for every single instance 
of the kind, it seems quite probable that at least tivo metaphysical 
writers might be found guilty. Obviously, some such large proportion 
may reasonably be expected, when we consider that Determinism, 
(the word Mill and others prefer to Necessity), is a theory involving 
a certain kind of metaphysics. 

But the really largest crop of materializers arises from a Debateable 
Land. There is a hybrid class of " thinkers," concerning whom the 
best physical-science authorities allege that "such nebulous rascals 
are mere metaphysicians," while metaphysical speculators, pure and 
simple, feel quite sure that "though under a cloud, the gentlemen 
must be Physicists."* 

So far as Biology f is concerned, let the reader compare Mr. Herbert 

out, is thus clearly stated by Professor Huxley. "All the phenomena of 
nature are, in their ultimate analysis, known to us only as facts of con- 
sciousness." " On Descartes," Lay Sermons, p. 374. This statement is an 
incontrovertible proposition ; and may help in persuading us to believe 
our own souls. At all events, we plainly see that the sum total of our 
human knowledge is potentially contained in their evidence. 

* A mongrel Word-book would be a valuable addition to popular science. 
How many metaphysicians proper, or how many skilled students of Natural 
Science, can explain that novel compound " Psychoplasm " ? The Westminster 
Review is not lost in admiration for either this new coinage, or another specimen 
from the same mint, — " Metempirics." (See No. for July, 1874.) The Fort- 
nightly is more congratulatory. 

f Kavaisson, the great philosophical critic of France, considers Biology 
among the sciences directly antagonistic to Materialism. He classifies the 
tendencies of scientific studies thus. There are, he says, " Deux directions 
opposees auxquelles nous inclinent les deux ordres differents de connais- 
sances : — la direction qui aboutit au Materialisme, et c'est celle dans laquelle 
nous engagent les mathematiques et la physique, et la direction qui mene 
au spiritualisme, et c'est celle ou acheminent la biologie et surtout les sciences 
morales et esthetiques." {La Philosophic en France, p. 98.) His description 
of a certain degree of progress in the mind of Comte illustrates this same 
idea : — " II comprit, en presence de la vie, que ce n'etait pas assez, comme il 
avait pu le croire dans la sphere des choses mecaniques et physiques, de con- 
siderer des phenomenes a la suite ou a cote les uns des autres, mais que, 
de plus, que surtout il fallait prendre en consideration l'ordre et l'ensemble. 

" En presence des etres organises, on s'apercoit, disait-il, que le detail des 
phenomenes, quelque explication plus ou moins suffisante qu'on en donne, n'est 
ni le tout ni meme le principal ; que le principal, et Ton pourrait presque dire 
le tout, c'est l'ensemble dans Tespace, le pr ogres dans le temps, et qu'expliquer 



ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER III. 



247 



Spencer's latest utterances already referred to, (in Essays, Vol. III. 
sub. Jin., especially pp. 249-50), with the following passages from 
Mr. Huxley. " I suppose if there be an ' iron ' law, it is that of gra- 
vitation ; and if there be a physical necessity, it is that a stone, 
unsupported, must fall to the ground. But what is all we really know 
and can know about the latter phenomenon ? Simply, that, in all 
human experience, stones have fallen to the ground under these 
conditions ; that we have not the smallest reason for believing that 
any stone so circumstanced will not fall to the ground ; and that we 
have, on the contrary, every reason to believe that it will so fall. It 
is very convenient to indicate that all the conditions of belief have 
been fulfilled in this case, by calling the statement that unsupported 
stones will fall to the ground, ' a law of nature.' But when, as 
commonly happens, we change will into must, we introduce an idea 
of necessity which most assuredly does not lie in the observed facts, 
and has no warranty that I can discover elsewhere. For my part, I 
utterly repudiate and anathematize the intruder. Fact I know ; and 
Law I know ; but what is this Necessity, save an empty shadow of 
my own mind's throwing ? But if it is certain that we can have no 
knowledge of the nature of either matter or spirit, and that the notion 
of necessity is something illegitimately thrust into the perfectly 
legitimate conception of law, the materialistic position that there 
is nothing in the world but matter, force, and necessity, is as utterly 
devoid of justification as the most baseless of theological dogmas." 
(" On the Physical Basis of Life," Lay Sermons, pp. 157-8.) 

And again (pp. 159-60) : — 

" We live in a world which is full of misery and ignorance, and the 

un etre vivant, ce serait montrer la raison de cet ensemble et de ce progres, qui 
est la vie meme 

" Dans les sciences des choses inorganiques, disait-il encore, on procede par 
deduction des details au tout ; dans les sciences des etres organises, c'est de 
l'ensemble que se tire par deduction, la vraie connaissance des parties. 

" De plus, d'accord maintenant avec Platon, Aristote, Leibniz, il declai ait 
que l'ensemble etant le resultat et l'expression d'une certaine unite, a laquelle 
tout concourt et se co-ordonne et qui est le but ou tout marche, c'est dans 
cette unite, c'est dans le but, c'est dans la fin ou cause finale qu'est le secret de 
l'organisme. 

" Le 16 Juillet 1843, ecrivant a M. Stuart Mill, il exprimait l'opinion que, si 
ce savant ne le suivait pas dans les voies plus larges ou dorenavant il allait 
marcbait, c'est que, tres-verse dans les etudes matbematiques et pbysiques, ii 
n'etait pas assez familier avec les pbenomenes de la vie. Plus avance dans ]a 
science biologique, M. Mill aurait mieux compris comment il faut, outre le 
detail des faits, quelque cbose qui les domine, qui les combine et les co-or- 
donne." {Ibid. p. 75, seq.) 



248 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



plain duty of each and all of us is to try to make the little corner he 
can influence somewhat less miserable and somewhat less ignorant 
than it was before he entered it. To do this effectually it is necessary 
to be fully possessed of only two beliefs : the first, that the order of 
nature is ascertainable by our faculties to an extent which is practically 
unlimited ; the second, that our volition counts for something as a 
condition of the course of events. 

" Each of these beliefs can be verified experimentally, as often as 
we like to try. Each, therefore, stands upon the strongest foundation 
upon which any belief can rest, and forms one of our highest truths. 
If we find that the ascertainment of the order of nature is facilitated 
by using one terminology, or one set of symbols, rather than another, 
it is our clear duty to use the former ; and no harm can accrue, so 
long as we bear in mind, that we are dealing merely with terms and 
symbols." 

Symbols, are to the true philosopher like old-fashioned copper 
"tokens," privately impressed with letters and devices, but lacking 
the Koyal image and superscription. They are, as Spencer and 
Huxley agree, "unknown quantities;" — relativities not entities. 
They are employable enough where they suit,* provided Mr. Huxley's 
caveat (p. 161) is steadily kept in mind. " The errors of systematic 
materialism may paralyze the energies and destroy the beauty of a 
life." 

The reader may be pleased to put the subject of Materialism before 
himself in a compendious shape as follows: — If the question asked be, 
" What is Matter ? " the answer appears little likely to be of moment 
to morals or Natural Theology, except so far as human ignorance is 
made a plea for Scepticism. But, if it is inquired, " whether the 
Mechanical Laws of Matter are the laws of Universal Nature, including 
human nature ? the issue becomes most momentous. The reply made, 
answers another question of the deepest interest : — " Are there any 
conditions under which a Science of Natural Theology is possible ? " 
If Mechanism be the law of the Universe, Natural Theology is plainly 
impossible. 

* These pages are inappropriate to that wide and momentous controversy : 
— Has each Science a Method of its own ? — and by consequence its own 
terminology? That such a question remains to be debated, is a clear proof 
that most of our philosophizing is yet tentative ; and has not passed over the 
critical " first stage." 



CHAPTER IV. 
BELIEFS OF REASON. 



' i While we indulge to the Sensitive or Plantal Life, our delights are 
common to us with the creatures beloiv us : and 'tis likely, they exceed 
us as much in them, as in the senses their subjects ; and that's a poor 
happiness for Man to aim at, in which Beasts are his Superiours. But 
those Mercurial spirits which were only lent the Earth to shew Men 
their folly in admiring it ; possess delights of a nobler make and nature, 
which as it were antedate Immortality; and, at an humble distance, 
resemble the joyes of the world of Light and Glory. The Sun and Stars, 
are not the world's Eyes, but These : the Celestial Argus cannot glory in 
such an universal view. These out-travel theirs, and their Monarch's 
beams : passing into Vortexes beyond their Light and Influence ; and 
with an easie twinkle of an Intellectual Eye look into the Centre, which 
is obscur'd from the upper Luminaries. This is somewhat like the Image 
of Omnipresence. And what the Hermetical Philosophy saith of God, is 
in a sense verifiable of the thus ennobled soul, That its Centre is every 
where, but its circumference no where .... 

And yet ther's an higher degree, to which Philosophy sublimes 
us. For, as it teacheth a generous contempt of what the grovelling de- 
sires of creeping Mortals Idolize and dote on : so it raiseth us to love and 
admire an Object, that is as much above terrestrial, as Infinite can make 
it. If Plutarch may have credit, the observation of Nature's Harmony 
in the Celestial Motions was one of the first inducements to the belief of 
a God. And a greater then he affirms, that the visible things of the 
Creation declare him, that made them. What knowledge, we have of 
them, we have in a sense of their Authour. His face cannot be beheld 
by Creature-Opticks, without the allay of a reflexion ; and Nature is one 
of those mirrors, that represents him to us. And now, the more we 
know of him the more we love him, the more we are like him, the 
more we admire him. 'Tis here that knowledge wonders; and there's 
an Admiration, that's not the Daughter of Ignorance. This indeed 
stupidly gazeth at the unwonted effect. But the Philosophical passion 
truly admires and adores the supreme Efficient 

" . . . . And from this last article, I think I may conclude the charge, 
which hot-brained folly layes in against Philosophy; that it leads to 
Irreligion, frivolous and vain. I dare say, next after the divine Word, it's 
one of the best friends to Piety. Neither is it any more justly account- 
able for the impious irregularities of some, that have paid an homage to 
its shrine ; than Religion itself for the extravagancies both opinionative 
and practick of high pretenders to it. It is a vulgar conceit, that Philo- 
sophy holds a confederacy with Atheism itself, but most injurious: for 
nothing can better antidote us against it : and they may as well say, that 
Physitians are the only murtherers. A Philosophick Atheist, is as good 



sense as a Divine one." — Glanvill's Apology for Philosophy, at end of 
Scepsis Scientifica, Ed. I. p. 177, seq. 

"Ecrrt yap airaidevcria to /ir) yiyvdoaKeiv t'lvoov dec ^tglv <XTr65ei£ii> /ecu tivtav 6v dei 
OAws fxkv yap airdvTCOU ddvvarov dirodeL^iv elvaC its aireipov yap dv /3a5i£"cu, (bare 
firjd' ovtus dvai airbb'eL&v. Arist. Metaph. IV. (r) cap. 4. 

The following is the translation of MM. Pierron et Ze'vort : "C'est de 
l'ignorance de ne pas savoir distinguer ce qui a besoin de demonstration 
de ce qui n'en a pas besoin. II est absolumenfc impossible de tout de- 
montrer : il faudrait pour cela aller a l'infini ; de sorte qu'il n'y aurait 
meme pas de demonstration." Metaphysique d'Aristote, Tome I. p. 116. 

" Man's higher Instinct leads to lofty aspiration, 
To generous sentiment, and boundless desire, 
Till he seeks and finds the Author of his Soul. 
In seeking for him he perfects his virtue, 
By finding him he is made strong within, 
And being strong he strengthens his brethren." 

" Light is natural to the Eye, and the Eye improves under Light, 
So Truth is natural to the Mind, and the Mind improves under Truth. 
But the student of Goodness must himself become good, 
So far at least as to choose Goodness for his best portion. 
If base passion or worldliness is allowed to domineer, 
No man can gaze steadily at Purity and at God. 
And then perhaps he despairs of religious truth, 
And moralizes on Man's feebleness and limited faculties, 
So unfitted to fathom the Divine and to know the Eternal !" 

F. Newman. Theism, pp. 2 and 12, 

"The world offers just now the spectacle, humiliating to us in many 
ways, of millions of people clinging to their old idolatrous religions, and 
refusing to change them even for a higher form ; whilst in Christian 
Europe thousands of the most cultivated class are beginning to consider 
atheism a permissible, or even a desirable thing. The very instincts of 
the savage rebuke us. But just when we seem in danger of losing all, 
may come the moment of awakening to the dangers of our loss. A 
world where thought is a secretion of the brain-gland, where free-will is 
the dream of a madman that thinks he is an emperor though naked and 
in chains, where God is not, or at least not knowable, such is not the 
world as we learnt it, on which great lives have been lived out, great 
self-sacrifices dared, great piety and devotion have been bent to soften 
the sin, the ignorance, and the misery. It is a world from which the sun 
is withdrawn, and with it all light and life. But this is not our world as 
it was, not the world of our fathers. To live is to think and to will. 
To think is to see the chain of facts in creation, and passing along its 
golden links, to find the hand of God at its beginning, as we saw His 



handiwork in its course. And to will is to be able to know good and 
evil ; and to will aright is to submit the will entirely to a will higher 
than ours. So that with God alone can we find true knowledge and true 
rest, the vaunted fruits of philosophy." — Limits of Philosophical Inquiry. 
By the Archbishop of York, p. 24. 

" The mind of man becomes 
A thousand times more beautiful than the earth 
On which he dwells, above this frame of things 



In beauty exalted, as it is itself 
Of quality and fabric more divine." 

Wordsworth. The Prelude, sub. fin. 

"Religion, Poetry is not dead; it will never die. Its dwelling and 
birth place is in the soul of man, and it is eternal as the being of man. 
In any point of space, in any section of Time, let there be a living Man ; 
and there is an Infinitude above him and beneath him, and an Eternity 
encompasses him on this hand and on that ; and tones of Sphere-music, 
and tidings from loftier worlds, will flit round him, if he can but listen, 
and visit him with holy influences, even in the thickest press of trivialities, 
or the din of busiest life. Happy the man, happy the nation, that can 
hear these tidings ; that has them written in fit characters, legible to 
every eye, and the solemn import of them present at all moments to 
every heart ! That there is, in these days, no nation so happy, is too 
clear ; but that all nations, and ourselves in the van, are, with more or 
less discernment of its nature, struggling towards this happiness, is the 
hope and the glory of our time. To us, as to others, success, at a distant 
or a nearer day, cannot be uncertain. Meanwhile, the first condition of 
success is, that, in striving honestly ourselves, we honestly acknowledge 
the striving of our neighbour ; that with a will unwearied in seeking 
Truth, we have a sense open for it wheresoever and howsoever it may 
arise." — Carlyle. Miscellanies, p. 99, Last Edition. 



SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER IV. 



With the last Chapter closes what may be termed the more critical part 
of this Essay. The remainder is occupied with a series of affirmative 
arguments. 

The preparation for these arguments having been minutely made, ex- 
planatory additions become less necessary. 

The main object of the present chapter is to establish a tenable Theory 
respecting those Human Beliefs among which is included our primary 
Belief in Theism. Their nature and validity not having as yet been 
sufficiently investigated (see footnote (6) p. 256 post), some extent 
of discussion attends the inquiry. To many readers the territory 
opened out will appear new. It ought however to be traversed by 
all careful students of Psychology. 

Analysis: — Tendencies of the Human Mind resulting in certain concrete 
Beliefs. The Inductive Principle, or Law of Uniformity, investi- 
gated. Various explanations of its origin examined and rejected ; 
particularly the hypothesis which resolves it into Laws of Associa- 
tion. Shewn to be a primary Belief ; at first pre-rational, afterwards 
limited and established by Reason. The latter process separates by 
a strong line of demarcation the realm of Humanity from that of 
the lower creation. 

Animal instincts, some improvable, some "survivals." Human instincts 
transformed by Reason. Certain primary Beliefs peculiar to Man. 
Hence his special culture. 

Theism. Fallacies from confusion between Tests of Speculative and of 
Practical Truth. Lesson of Mathematics. Speculative truths tested 
by analytic process ; Practical by synthetic ; their work becomes 
their ever-growing verification. Application of this test to two 
practical beliefs ; our natural belief in externalities, and our belief 
in the Supernatural. Speculative difficulties intruded into the prac- 
tical sphere become apparently insuperable. Both spheres essentially 
Human. Natural Realism compared with Realistic Theism. 

Formation and growth of Belief in the Supernatural as a Belief of Reason. 
Absurdities attaching to its rejection. Ennobling influences of its 
acceptance explained and exemplified. Ideal of Humanity, crowned 
by the Ideal of God, to Whom both the Natural and the Moral 
world bear witness. 



CHAPTEE IV. 

BELIEFS OF EEASON. 

In the last section, we have examined a number of intellectual 
perplexities, running closely parallel to certain primd-facie 
objections commonly alleged against Natural Theism. We 
have seen that they are, in reality, difficulties arising from the 
impotence of the Human Mind, whenever it is directed to the 
contemplation of first or supreme, Principles. In all reason 
therefore, they cease to be objections. We are, in fact, con- 
stantly finding ourselves obliged to accept as an undeniable 
truth, or a real existence, what when placed objectively before 
our mental vision, appears inexplicable, self-contradictory, or 
absolutely unthinkable. 

The power which compels us to many an admission of this 
kind is the mind itself, asserting a strength of insight, in-born 
and inalienable, notwithstanding the symptoms of weakness, 
which (psychologically speaking) may have seemed threaten- 
ing to overcloud and disable it. (a) 

(a) "In vain," says Hume's Cleanthes, "In vain would the sceptic 
make a distinction between science and common life, or between one 
science and another. The arguments, employed in all, if just, are of a 
similar nature, and contain the same force and evidence. Or if there be 
any difference among them, the advantage lies entirely on the side of 
theology and natural religion." — Dialogues, etc., Part I. sub. fin. 

And our ultimate appeal — as for example concerning the subject next 
discussed in this chapter — is, he observes, to an instinctive operation of 
the mind which obliges us to accept and act upon what we cannot explain. 
Writing in his own person, Mr. Hume observes, ' i As nature has taught 
us the use of our limbs, without giving us the knowledge of the muscles 
and nerves by which they are actuated, so has she implanted in us an 



256 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



Hence, we are led to suspect that some at least of those 
symptomatic weaknesses, are mistakes in diagnosis. This 
suspicion will be shared by most persons tolerably acquainted 
with the present state of psychology, and particularly with the 
manner in which foregone theories are supported by over- 
refined analysis. At all events, the reactionary strength of 
the mind is best shown in the concrete beliefs resulting from 
its own simplest activities. 

Our simplest mental activities are naturally our earliest. 
Amongst them, none are more distinctly marked than our im- 
pulses to believe and act upon certain definite pre-suppositions. 
These differ from the vague and purposeless dreams of child- 
hood, by gradually becoming clear, practical, and expansive. 
One of the most vigorous, permanent, and prevailing, amongst 
them all, is our human belief in the existence of supernatural 
power. Upon another pre-supposition (not originally the 
clearest), seems to rest, in the first degree, that principle which 
gives validity to all the inductive sciences. We will carefully 
examine this latter belief, with the object of drawing from the 
process certain aids for an examination of the former. (6) 

instinct, which carries forward the thought in a correspondent course to 
that which she has established among external objects ; though we are 
ignorant of those powers and forces on which this regular course and 
succession of objects totally depends." — Inquiry concerning the Human 
Understanding. Section V., end. Compare footnote (d) to this chapter, 
p. 269 post. 

(b) The word Belief has been used in a variety of senses by modern 
writers of differing views from Jacobi to Sir. W. Hamilton, from Dr. 
Newman to Mr. Herbert Spencer. 

"This word," Mr. Spencer says, "is habitually applied to dicta of 
consciousness for which no proof can be assigned : both those which are 
unprovable because they underlie all proof, and those which are unprovable 
because of the absence of evidence." And again; "we commonly say we 
'believe ' a thing for which we can assign some preponderating evidence, 
or concerning which we have received some indefinable impression. 

. ... . And it is the peculiarity of these beliefs, as contrasted 
with cognitions, that their connexions with antecedent states of con- 
sciousness may be easily severed, instead of being difficult to sever. But 
unhappily, the word 'belief is also applied to each of those tempo- 
rarily or permanently indissoluble connexions in consciousness, for the 
acceptance of which the only warrant is that it cannot be got rid of. . . 
. . Thus the two opposite poles of knowledge go under the same name ; 
and by the reverse connotations of this name, as used for the most 



BELIEFS OF REASON. 



257 



Induction is defined as the legitimate inference of the more 
general, from the less general ; — the general from the particular ; 
— and (with more startling distinctness) of the Unknown from 
the Known. It is at once evident that, whatever may be the 
logical form into which this mode of inferring is thrown, there 
must in the nature of things be some ulterior principle to give 
it legitimacy. This principle, when raised to the rank and 
dignity of a philosophic postulate, is commonly known as the 
Law of Natural Uniformity. A law claiming such extensive 
dominion that one cannot help asking in what code, human 
or Divine, of reason or of experience, it was originally found 
written. 

Let us have recourse to the code of reason first. Euclid 
gives admirable instances of things true by necessity of reason. 
The moment we understand what right lines are, we see at 
once and for all time that two straight lines, infinitely pro- 
longed, can never inclose a space. No one ever did see a 
mathematical line of any kind (" length without thickness "), — 
no one ever saw or conceived any real or ideal thing of infinite 
extent, neither can we think infinity at all. Yet the terms of 
the geometrical proposition carry their own evidence. We 
may sum the case, as Euler the mathematician put it. He 

coherent and least coherent relations of thought, profound misconcep- 
tions have been generated." 

Mr. Spencer made these remarks at separate intervals of time, and has 
repeated them in 1874 (Essays, III. 259-60). It would therefore appear 
that he thinks little has recently been done to discriminate the significa- 
tions of so ambiguous a term. 

This chapter endeavours to investigate a small number of the genus 
"Beliefs " to which the differentia " Of Reason" has been added by way 
of distinction. It also attempts to offer a contribution towards the use- 
ful work of explaining their specific validity, and if its argument be 
correct, they constitute a very important definable species of the Genus, 
carrying with them a persuasion preeminently their own. 

On his page 260, last referred to, Mr. Spencer remarks, — "that the 
belief which the moral and religious feelings are said to yield of a 
personal God, is not one of the beliefs which are unprovable because 
they underlie all proof " — and adds that works on Natural Theology treat 
that Belief as inferential. 

The view taken of this moral and religious belief in the present Essay, 
is that it is in its own nature both primary and inferential. The former 
of these aspects is the one now under discussion. 

17 



258 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



finished a demonstration upon Arches by saying, "All ex- 
perience is contrary to this, but that is no reason for doubting 
its truth." 

Now, there appears nothing in the least resembling this 
case, in the conception of Natural Uniformity. No thinker 
can predicate substantial impossibility of the idea that Nature 
should ever be otherwise than Uniform. 

Suppose, then, we consider the code of Experience. Where 
shall we find the experience required ? Ours is far short of 
universal, either in an absolute or an approximate sense. We 
are the children of to-day — yet the law wanted must be to 
all intents universal. It has been answered to this obvious 
requirement, that we enjoy the results of an experience constant 
and uniform, "coextensive not with the life of the single 
individual who employs them, but with the entire history of 
the human race."* But in what history is any such ex- 
perience written ? History in its letter, is full of events 
which contradict Nature's uniformity, of interruptions, 
marvels, miracles. For cattle to speak, is quite a common 
occurrence in Livy. An ordinary Koman would have been 
perplexed by the absence of signs and wonders ; he would 
have felt it something to be accounted for. History tells us 
on every written page to believe in what seems impossible; 
and some writers on historical evidence, claim for it a greater 
amount of credibility whenever it testifies to the greater 
number of improbable incidents. For, do not writers of 
fiction deal in probabilities ? | 

* Compare Fowler's Inductive Logic, p. 29. [Since the reference was 
made, Mr. Fowler has become Professor of Logic in the University of 
Oxford.] 

t Mr. Fowler, in the little volume just referred to, describes another 
" Theory of the Origin of Universal Beliefs," as follows : — "It would 
admit that all beliefs alike are ultimately derived from experience, and 
still it would freely adopt the language that there are some beliefs which 
are 'native to the human mind.' The word 'experience' as ordinarily 
employed by psychologists, includes not only the experience of the 
individual, but the recorded experience of mankind. On the theory, 
however, of which we are now speaking, it has a still more extended 
meaning ; it includes experience, or to speak more strictly, a peculiar 
facility for forming certain experiences, transmitted by hereditary 
descent from generation to generation. While some ideas occur only to 



BELIEFS OF REASON. 



259 



Another method of giving force to the principle of natural 
Uniformity, is based on our alleged sense of personal subjection 
to the chain of events ; — the outer world is said to penetrate 
the inner by an impression of its unvarying sequence, its laws 
of unbroken continuity. But does the lesson of life really go 

particular individuals, at particular times, there are others which, from 
the frequency and constancy with which they are obtruded upon men's 
minds at all times and under all circumstances, become, after an 
accumulated experience of many generations, connatural, as it were, to 
the human mind. "We assume them, often unconsciously, in our special 
perceptions, and when the propositions, which embody them, are 
propounded to us, we find it impossible) on reflection, to doubt their 
truth. It is by personal experience of external objects and their relations 
that each man recognises thenij but the tendency to recognise them is 
transmitted, like the physical or mental peculiarities of race, from 
preceding generations, and is anterior to any special experience 
whatever on the part of the individual. This theory, to which much 
of modern speculation appears to be converging, is advocated with 
great ability in the works of Mr. Herbert Spencer." Inductive Logic, 
p. 31. 

This account of our Belief in the Inductive Principle agrees, ineffect, 
with the opinion of those who hold that our acceptance of its truth 
resembles our acceptance of Mathematical Truths in two very important 
respects : (1) Its Certitude. To use Dr. Whe well's words ; ' ' We are as 
certain of it as of the truths of arithmetic and geometry. We cannot doubt 
that it must apply to all events past and future, in every part of the 
universe, just as truly as to those occurrences which we have ourselves 
observed. What causes produce what effects ; — what is the cause of any 
particular event ; — what will be the effect of any peculiar process ; — 
these are points on which experience may enlighten us. Observation 
and experience may be requisite, to enable us to judge "respecting such 
matters. But that every event has some cause, Experience cannot prove 
any more than she can disprove. She can add nothing to the evidence 
of the truth, however often she may exemplify it. This doctrine, then, 
cannot have been acquired by her teaching/' WTiewell's Hist, of Scientific 
Ideas, B. III. Cap. ii. 

(2) In the fact of its being intuitive ; that is, as Mr. Fowler says, 
" connatural," or "native to the human mind." 

Whether we can trace the process through which it became one of the 
mental possessions characteristic of Mankind is a further question, and a 
very curious one. The subjects of improvement by education, and of the 
transmission of improvements thus acquired among men and the lower 
animals, belong in part to our next Chapter ; — they are, of course, deeply 
interesting to every philanthropist, every promoter of true progress and 
wholesome civilization. 



260 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



this way ? Most men, when meditating over their own lives, 
think rather of the causation they have themselves exercised, 
or might have exercised, than of any iron links of causality in 
nature. So strongly do they feel their causal power, that, 
whereas one man boasts of being the architect of his own 
fortunes, another blames himself because he has been foolish 
enough to let things take their chance. What people chiefly 
realize and act upon, is the relation between Man and Nature 
— or, else between Man and Man; — relations prolific in con- 
sequences which we shall have to consider by-and-bye. 

A more summary mode of explaining our human impression 
of natural Uniformity, is by resolving it into certain laws of 
Association. We see antecedent and consequent every day, 
and get to consider them as indissolubly associated. If we 
see a present antecedent, we expect a coming consequent. The 
event and its futurity, are thus fused in a common solvent. 
Yet, one palpable objection lies against this theory, and it 
is fatal. Fatal against it, and against all theories which rest 
our belief upon experience, or upon any process of reasoning, 
inductive or demonstrated. The objection consists in the 
plain fact, that this belief resembles animal instinct* in one 

* Galen remarks upon the immediate activity of animal instinct prior 
to example or habituation. Most Naturalists know his experiment of 
hatching three different sorts of eggs together. He was much struck to see 
the young aquatic bird, reptile, and eaglet, betake themselves at once, each 
to his vocation. Some persons referred these instincts to the influence of 
organs fitted for definite uses, yet, observes Galen, the young calf will 
butt before he has got horns. A good deal might be added to Galen's 
rejoinder. Animals seem often to work without fitness of organization, — 
or one might almost say in defiance of their organs. w There is nothing," 
says Sir C. Bell, ' £ in the configuration of the black bear, particularly 
adapted for his catching fish ; yet he will sit, on his hinder extremities, 
by the side of a stream, morning or evening, on the watch, like a practised 
fisher, and so perfectly motionless as to deceive the eye of the Indian, 
who mistakes him for the burnt trunk of a tree ; when he sees his 
opportunity favourable, he will thrust out his fore-paw, and seize a fish 
with incredible celerity. The exterior organ is not, in this instance, the 
cause of the habit or of the propensity ; and if we thus see the instinct 
bestowed without the appropriate organ, may we not the more readily 
believe, in other examples, when the two are conjoined, that the habit 
exists with the instrument, although not through it?" (Bridgewater 
Treatise, Chap. x. p. 250.) — In Captain Cook's third voyage there is 



BELIEFS OF REASON. 



261 



definite particular — it exists previously to all observation or 
exercise of intelligence on the subject. 

We see it in all young creatures. The instinct of children 
is to act upon a supposition that the thing they have enjoyed 
or suffered shall recur regularly and without interruption. 
The darling brought down to dessert every day for a week, 
feels injured by a breach of the custom, just as the cat or dog 
fed from their masters' table expects the same hand to continue 
always kind. Child, kitten, and puppy, need no second 
scalding to look askance at the tea-kettle. Grown people's 
confidence in the stability of Empires often reposes on no 
much stronger foundation. Most men rest satisfied with an 
indefinite and unreasoning presumption all their lives long. 
They desire no further explanation — a happy circumstance, 
perhaps, considering, the theories they might have to 
investigate. 

Mr. James Mill in his " Analysis of the Human Mind " made 
great and continual use of the laws of Association. He applied 
them (amongst other ways) to our belief in the uniform 
futurities of Nature. " There can " he writes " be no idea of 
the Future; because strictly speaking the Future is a non- 
entity — of nothing there can be no idea Our whole 

lives are but a series of changes, that is, of antecedents and 
consequents. The conjunction, therefore, is incessant; and, of 
course, the union of the ideas perfectly inseparable." (Vol. I. 
pp. 362-3.) And again, (p. 367,) " But I am told, that we 
have not only the idea of to-morrow, but the belief of to- 
morrow ; and I am asked what that belief is. I answer, that 
you have not only the idea of to-morrow, but have it 
inseparably. It will also appear, that wherever the name 

another anecdote of bears equally curious. " The wild deer (barein) are 
far too swift for those lumbering sportsmen ; so the bear perceives them 
at a distance by the scent ; and, as they herd in low grounds, when he 
approaches them, he gets upon the adjoining eminence, from whence he 
rolls down pieces of rock ; nor does he quit his ambush, and pursue, until 
he finds that some have been maimed." (Yol. 3, p. 306.) 

In such cases as these, there is a manifest want of correspondence 
between animal organisms and animal instincts, which many naturalists 
consider essentially interdependent. Yet on their mutual action and 
reaction some have founded a theory of evolution. 



262 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



belief is applied, there is a case of the indissoluble association 
of ideas. It will further appear, that, in instances without 
number, the name belief is applied to a mere case of indissoluble 
association; and no instance can be adduced in which any- 
thing besides an indissoluble association can be shewn in 
belief. It would seem to follow from this, with abundant 
evidence, that the whole of my notion of to-morrow, belief 
included, is nothing but a case of the inevitable sequence of 
ideas." — This theory Mr. Bain (no hostile critic) annotates as 
follows. " The case that is most thoroughly opposed to the 
theory of indissoluble association is our belief in the Uniformity 
of Nature. Our overweening tendency to anticipate the 
future from the past is shown prior to all association ; the first 
effect of experience is to abridge and modify a strong primitive 
urgency. There is, no doubt, a certain stage when association 
co-operates to justify the believing state. After our headlong 
instinct has, by a series of reverses, been humbled and toned 
down, and after we have discovered that the Uniformity, at 
first imposed by the mind upon everything, applies to some 
things and not to others, we are confirmed by our experience 
in the cases where the uniformity prevails ; and the intellectual 
growth of association counts for a small part of the believing 
impetus. Still, the efficacy of experience is perhaps negative 
rather than positive ; it saves, in certain cases, the primitive 
force of anticipation from the attacks made upon it in the 
other cases where it is contradicted by the facts. It does not 
make belief, it conserves a pre-existing belief." In Mr. Bain's 
comment it is worthy of particular remark that he considers 
experience less as a foundation, than a test always, — a limit 
sometimes, — of that law which gives life to all the experimental 
sciences. " The uniformity imposed by the mind," he observes, 
" applies to somethings but not toothers." His view, therefore, 
places the principle itself in the light of a generality given by 
the mind and apprehended as a leading maxim. Its field is 
sometimes re-asserted, — sometimes contracted, — by experience; 
but in both cases the effect is a process of discrimination. 

In support of this view, it may be fairly urged that a child 
calculates on the uniformity of human character and conduct, 
to an extent not justified in after life. Any child correctly 



BELIEFS OF REASON. 



263 



expects a stone to fall when thrown into the air, without the 
least idea of that special reason for its fall, which can be 
mathematically extended to the stars. In like manner, our 
very earliest belief in the reality of men and objects outside 
us, confuses persons and things as resisting antagonists which 
ought to be punished and overcome. Experience, therefore, 
brings discrimination. Thus, too, the natural apprehension of 
a power above nature, occupies a more defined sphere in our 
own old age than the first radiant glimpses of our wondering 
upward-springing childhood. And the same may be said of 
the world's several eras of religious thinking. Yet, if some 
eminent writers are correct in contending that the belief in a 
Supreme " Heaven- Father" (so strong in the Aryan* family,) 
was of extreme antiquity, we must admit that our race's infancy 
cherished a more truly Theistic faith, than many intervening- 
ages of moral degeneracy retained, f But, side by side with 
this admission, we ought to place two notable facts, — first that 
our sense of the supernatural has really educated the great 
heart of Man ; teaching him from the love of God to love his 
neighbour likewise. — Next, — that the awful impression has, on 
the whole, grown with his growth, and strengthened with his 
strength ; acquiring fresh light and beauty with every fresh 
access to his noblest illumination. Exactly in proportion, as 
man increasingly learns to love and live for his neighbour, he 
has always increased the depth and earnestness with which he 
lives for and loves his God. In these two facts is bound up 
the secret of our Western civilization. 

We must return, however, for a few paragraphs to the 

* "We have in the -Veda the invocation Dyaus pitar, the Greek 
ZeO irarep, the Latin Jupiter ; and that means in all the three languages 
what it meant before these three languages were torn asunder — it means 
Heaven-Father. These two words are not mere words ; they are to my 
mind the oldest poem, the oldest prayer of mankind, or at least of that 
pure branch of it to which we belong — and I am as firmly convinced that 
this prayer was uttered, that this name was given to the unknown God 
before Sanskrit was Sanskrit, and Greek was Greek, as when I see the 
Lord's Prayer in the languages of Polynesia and Melanesia, I feel certain 
that it was first uttered in the language of Jerusalem. ' ; Professor Max 
Muller's Science of Religion. New Ed. p. 172. 

f This then would seem to be an instance of wide spread " moral 
regression." 



264 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



general consideration of what may be called our pre-rational 
beliefs, (c) That they are pre-rational (account for them as we 
will), is evident since from them spring our first tendencies to 
reason in special directions, and our first ability to receive and 
assimilate such mental food as may be afforded us. " The 
primary facts of intelligence," — says Sir W, Hamilton, "the 
facts which precede, as they afford the conditions of, all know- 
ledge, — would not be original were they revealed to us under 
any other form than that of natural or necessary beliefs." * A 
central point this; and one most essential for the Psychologist ! 
Indeed, every one who explains such beliefs into laws of 
association, commits the oversight of refining away the chief 

(c) Our deep-rooted tendency to trust human testimony may yield a 
very curious example of the difficulties presented by the whole class of 
pre-rational beliefs. Mr. J. Mill in accordance with his system of fore- 
gone Associations " resolves" this case as follows (Analysis I. p. 385-6): 
' ' Belief in testimony is but a case of the anticipation of the future from 
the past ; and belief in the uniformity of the laws of nature is but 

another name for the same thing The testimony uniformly calls 

up the idea of the reality of the event, so closely, that I cannot disjoin 
them. But the idea, irresistibly forced upon me, of a real event, is 
Belief." 

On this explanation Mr. Bain remarks, "The belief in Testimony is 
derived from the primary credulity of the mind, in certain instances left 
intact under the wear and tear of adverse experience. Hardly any fact 
of the human mind is better attested than the primitive disposition to 
receive all testimony with unflinching credence. It never occurs to the 
child to question any statement made to it, until some positive force on 
the side of scepticism has been developed. Gradually we find that certain 
testimonies are inconsistent with fact ; we have, therefore, to go through 
a long education in discriminating the good testimonies from the bad. To 
the one class, we adhere with the primitive force of conviction that in the 
other class has been shaken and worn away by the shocks of repeated 
contradictions ." 

It seems quite possible that our "primary credulity' 5 may be one 
example of a wider spread feeling of reliance engendered in part by 
affection and dependence. Its force varies considerably in various minds. 
Women whose lives have been happy and free from disappointment 
retain much of this primary intuitive belief to the end of their days. 
Among men, the trust in Testimony becomes controlled by their power 
of balancing probabilities ; a faculty in which the very credulous and 
also the very sceptical are often observed to be deficient. The dis- 
appointed of both sexes proverbially incline to Scepticism. 

* Metaph. I. 44. 



BELIEFS OF REASON. 



265 



fact involved in those laws themselves. For, the very idea 
of association presupposes a guiding impulse. How can we 
classify without a standard of classification, arrange or connect 
without threads of connection or arrangement ? Laws of 
association must cluster round an associating principle, just as 
translucent halos encircle the Sun. Laws of association do not 
make principles ; but an operative principle evokes associations, 
and manifests itself in their law. 

Oversights like this, and the one before noted by Mr. Bain, 
are examples of the paralogism incident to all attempts at 
explaining the inexplicable. In his eagerness, the metaphysical 
refiner subtilizes away the truth under analysis. Even so, in 
days of old, Alchemists used to sublimate the gold intended for 
transmuting inferior metals, till it flew off in elastic vapour, 
and all that had been precious, vanished from the eager 
speculative man. A frequent issue this, to searchers after our 
true philosopher's stone. 

The catalogue of pre-rational beliefs or impulses to believe, 
is considerable, and might easily be enlarged. But there is 
much to hinder a full enumeration. In the first place, they 
emerge from a border-land between the brute and the man ; 
and border territories are proverbially fertile in disputes. 
Next, they have to be sought out and examined in the birth- 
place of intelligence ; and the beginnings of knowledge like 
the beginnings of history are overshadowed by a twilight haze. 
Then, too, amongst the painters of human nature, (who after 
all are but men,) there prevails a disinclination* to confess how 
largely our human life is cradled under the rule of unreason 
and impulsiveness. Most of us hardly know why we act, yet, 
every one likes to believe himself reasoning and reasonable. 
Finally, some religious minds shrink back from realizing the 
idea of an instinctive belief in the moral antithesis of Right 
and Wrong, or in a Supreme First Cause and Judge of all men. 
They feel as if to admit it were almost degrading to Faith, — 
forgetful that the philosophic Apostle took this view and 
expressed it with the utmost boldness* Forgetful, also, that 
from whatever source Man's reason sprang, from the same 
welled forth every bright stream of practical activity, — 

* Acts xvii. 27, 28. Romans i. 32 ; ii. 14 seq. 



266 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



impelling him to work in spheres as yet unconquered by the 
force of his own understanding. 

The hindrances now described are, after all, grounded on 
an inadequate conception of the true distinction between the 
Animal and the Man. Apart from the fact that ultimate 
objects of instinct differ as widely as the idea of a future life 
differs from the poorest enjoyments of the brute world, — quite 
apart from all consideration of aims and ends, — the impulses 
themselves are in their own activities very far indeed from 
occupying the same level. There are instincts of the utmost 
importance to all self support and self protection, and to the 
sustenance and care of others, which appear in their own 
nature simple and unalterable ; — unerring within their direct 
line, but beyond it helpless and narrow in their field of 
operation. Other instincts again, — such, for example, as 
impel animals to construction, and human beings to art, — are 
evidently influenced and enlarged by intelligence. Beavers 
adapt their dams, birds their nests, and the bee her comb, to 
all kinds of circumstances, so far as they can command the 
means of adaptation. Their intelligence also delights itself 
in different kinds of adornment * But the power of meeting 

* Most persons have read with delight the observations on Insect 
Architecture from Huber downwards. Birds are generally well watched 
and well reported. Many Naturalists have written on these subjects, 
from a hope of creating in the minds of men some softer interest for 
their humble companions. Mr. Jesse naively prefaces a collection of 
anecdotes, by saying that, of all the nations in Europe, our own country- 
men are perhaps the least inclined to treat the brute creation with 
tenderness. 

Wilson long ago observed that the nest building of birds was not 
always the same in the same species. The older birds built the better 
nests. 

M. Pouchet of Rouen proved that when the new streets of that city 
were erected, the window-swallows altered their nests and substantially 
improved them. A short account of his observations will be found in 
Wallace's Contributions, 228 A. Mr. Wallace adds several instances of 
bad nest building, especially by pigeons, rooks, and window-swallows, a 
circumstance also noticed by White of Selborne. 

Amongst the most remarkable bird-families with special ideas of con- 
struction, are the mound-builders, and bower birds of Australia, de- 
scribed by Mr. Gould. The former hatch their eggs in hillocks contrived 
to retain during the night, amid their warm vegetable linings, the solar 



BELIEFS OF REASON. 



267 



exigencies, is manifestly limited throughout the lower creation. 
The bee has, for ages, worked upon marvellously accurate 
principles, unintelligible to mathematicians before the calculus 
was invented, and only fully explained of late years. She 
always erects one effectual and skilful kind of barricade * 
against hostile swarms, as well as that dreaded assailant, the 

heat of each successive day. The nests of one family are about a yard 
high and three wide. In another family, mounds of five yards in height 
and twelve in girth seem not uncommon ; and the circumference of one 
mound in particular measured full fifty yards. These larger mounds are 
the work of many birds, through many years, and their firm sides are 
covered by ancient forest growth. 

The bower birds construct over-arching alleys of curved branches, 
decorated with pretty grasses, gay feathers, shells and bones, particularly 
near the entrances. These bowers seem to be used as meeting and 
recreation places for both sexes. They vary to some extent amongst the 
different species of this singular tribe. 

There can be no doubt of the power of adaptation among animals ; — 
and those who study them most are least surprised at its extent. Horses 
will learn to go up and down stairs, cats to undo door latches ; and one 
pony mentioned by Jesse used to unfasten the stable door, open and rob 
the corn chest. Still more curious, is the American bird called neun- 
todter, which catches grasshoppers and spears them upon twigs, not for 
the shamble-purposes of the butcher bird, but simply as baits to catch 
and eat the smaller birds attracted by the spoil. 

Schleiden (Plant 232), tells a most singular story of a Kangaroo who 
tried to drown his pursuer, and shewed considerable craft in the way he 
set about the drowning. After knocking the hunter backwards into a 
pond, the " old man " (Australian for Kangaroo) kept pushing the poor 
fellow's head under water every time he raised it up.' If Kangaroo had 
never drowned a human being before, he must have proceeded by 
analogy, and argued, as some Naturalists do, from the brute to the man. 
A dog, mentioned by Jesse, endeavoured to save his drowning master's 
life by the reverse process to Kangaroo's, and would not let the beloved 
head disappear under water for many a wintry hour after life had been 
extinguished. (Country Life, p. 119.) 

A person reflecting on these and similar facts, does not feel much 
surprised at Aristotle's appreciation of animal intelligence, (e. g. , Historian 
viii. 1, 2,) " ws yap ev avdp&ircp Teyyr\ Kai crcxpia kcll avveais, ovtois evcois tQp £i$<av 
iari Tts ertpa tol&vtt) (pvatKT] Mvafxis." The animal power of adaptation, 
travelling beyond the routine of instinctive action, probably struck the 
philosopher very strongly. 

* These barricades are curiously galleried and casemated, like the 
defences of a fortress. The best account of them is given by the accurate 
and interesting Huber. 



268 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



Death's head moth. Furthermore, she evinces readiness in 
fitting all her material structures to place, occasion, and cir- 
cumstance. Yet, observe the same bee exhausting herself by 
vain struggles against the sloping roof of a greenhouse, of 
which every window is thrown wide open. She perseveres, 
hour after hour, in unavailing endeavours to escape by her 
one accustomed upward track of flight, unable to conceive the 
possibility of transparent but impenetrable glass; and in- 
capable of learning the fact by her repeated disappointments. 
In this way, hundreds of bees, butterflies, and other winged 
insects, perish miserably every summer. So, too, the highly 
educated and intelligent dog, will try to scratch holes in hard 
flag stones, and, after trials innumerable, still scratches on 
without seeming to discover that he never succeeds in making 
a single hole. Thus, also, birds in captivity keep up the 
perpetual motion of their heads — (useful to the poor prisoner 
no longer !) and generations after generations of captives 
maintain the instinctive practice. Numberless instances 
might easily be adduced to the same effect. But no similar 
observation holds good of man. The child soon discontinues 
its efforts to thrust an arm through a glass window; and 
every day learns some new lesson in the properties of material 
objects. The engineer builds dams as well as the beaver ; — 
but, beside dams, what marvels innumerable does he achieve 
with his earthworks, his timbers, and his stones ! Speaking 
generally, we perceive that man has an instinctive tendency 
to lay hold of a practical fact, idea, and law of action, as a 
concrete whole ; * — seizing it, at first, as the animal does 

* In Aristotle's Introduction to Physical Science, he remarks that Sense 
grasps at Wholes, so that in a certain way, the general may seem to take 
precedence with us of the particular. Language is a proof of this — 
Children's talk is apt to run in concretes ; — every man or woman is 
a father or mother to them. See Phys. Ausc. I. 1, with Pacius' note. 
The old commentator unties a knot which some moderns appear to have 
tied fast again. 

Addition. Aristotle's illustration, it is alleged (e. g. by Dr. Whewell), 
goes in the wrong direction ; fathers and mothers are less comprehensive 
terms than men and women ; the truth seems to be that children fail to 
perceive the differences between parents and other human beings ; — there- 
fore they call men and women, parents. Pacius says : — " Nunc igitur totum 
esse nobis notius, probat a signo, id est, argumento sumto ab infantibus, 



BELIEFS OF REASON. 



269 



without being able to analyze, recompound, or extend it. But 
reason holds the candle to instinct, (d) The impulse deepens 
and widens, — becomes distinguished by boldness and com- 
prehensive breadth; — and it is difficult, if not impossible, to 
fix boundaries to its ultimate expansion. An expansion 
coextensive with the completed destinies of mankind. 

We say thus much of our lower instincts, transformed and 
made glorious by reason shining through them ; just as the 
setting sun transforms and glorifies the clouds floating high 
overhead, or the half-translucent foliage of the grove in which 

qui initio non distinguunt patrem ab aliis viris, nec matrem ab aliis 
mulieribus : postea verb distinguunt : nempe, quia ab initio habuerunt 
cognitionem magis confusam, neque cognoverunt proprietates parentis, 
sed tantum eum noverunt sub ratione universali, quatenus est homo, 
ideoque non potuerunt eum ab aliis hominibus sejungere. Postea verb 
progredientes ad cognitionem magis particularem, possunt patrem ab 
aliis discernere." Ed. 1608, p. 346. 

(d) It is quite conceivable that the presence of Reason may from its 
first dawn, give rise to a very wide difference between the highest animal 
instincts, and the lowest instinctive impulses of Man. The discussion 
would be far too extensive for these pages ; but it is obvious that such 
a difference might clearly account for much that is obscure in the 
twilight territory of Mind. 

Hume, however, appears to have thought otherwise, as may be per- 
ceived in the Conclusion of his Reason of Animals. From his mention 
of " experimental reasoning " and the instances adduced, he would seem 
to attribute our Inductive process to a simple instinct. He writes thus : 
— " Though animals learn many parts of their knowledge from observa- 
tion, there are also many parts of it which they derive from the original 
hand of Nature, which much exceed the share of capacity they possess 
on ordinary occasions, and in which they improve little or nothing, by 
the longest practice and experience. These we denominate Instincts, 
and are so apt to admire as something very extraordinary and inexpli- 
cable by all the disquisitions of human understanding. But our wonder 
will perhaps cease or diminish when we consider that the experimental 
reasoning itself, which we possess in common with beasts, and on which 
the whole conduct of life depends, is nothing but a species of instinct or 
mechanical power, that acts in us unknown to ourselves, and in its chief 
operations is not directed by any such relations or comparison of ideas 
as are the proper objects of our intellectual faculties. Though the 
instinct be different, yet still it is an instinct, which teaches a man to 
avoid the fire, as much as that which teaches a bird, with such exactness, 
the art of incubation, and the whole economy and order of its nursery. " 
Compare foot-note (a) to this chapter, p. 255 ante. 



270 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



we walk. But there belong exclusively to Man, instinctive 
beliefs, impulses, and ideas, which possess a glory of their own ; 
— raise him, first above the brutes, — next above himself as he 
now exists, — and make him know that he may aspire to be- 
come the denizen of a brighter world than this. Among them, 
is the feeling that Nature herself is (like the tree or cloud 
illumined by the sun), everywhere penetrated by a beauty and a 
power streaming through her ; — compared with the reality of 
which she is but a filmy veil, — or it may be an illusive image. 
The sun himself, the light and life of the lower world, sym- 
bolizes an existence more truly kindling and ensouling, which 
animates and makes brilliant the blue arch of sky. Such 
thoughts as these haunted the first utterances of our race, — 
and it needed but another step to make us feel that this living 
light shines within ourselves, — and that, go where we will, a 
strength and Majesty go with us, which are not of the earth, 
earthy. Thus, the consciousness grew upon Man that his 
inner being glows with a radiance more sparkling than the 
stars, to which he lifts his bodily eyes. By-and-bye, he 
learned to think of the heaven within him, as symbolic also ; 
— and to cherish a trembling trust that, when he dies, its 
brightness will grow pale, and vanish away only by reason of 
a glory which excelleth. 

The Apostle beloved of his Master, told us of a true Light 
that lighteth every man. Yet, we might have been slow to 
realize the purer splendours over-arching our human soul, if 
they had not autotyped themselves on the language we com- 
monly speak. Perhaps, a more convincing proof still to some 
of us, is what every now and then becomes incidentally 
known ; — the God-ward impulses of a happily developed 
childhood, under circumstances favourable to the growth of 
" natural piety." In the heart of a child, feelings like those 
we have described, dwell untutored, as in their native and 
and appropriate home. An awe and dread accompany them 
amongst the world of men, but to the child they are never 
overpowering or oppressive. His finely-strung imagination 
works painlessly. The voices he hears when no human voice 
speaks, cause him no fear ; — they call to him from a region 
towards which his young soul springs up. They soothe him 



BELIEFS OF REASON. 



271 



with sensations of hope and peace and love unutterable. This 
yearning affection for things unseen, makes the deepest joy of 
a happy childhood ; it is a reason why Christ said, " Of such 
is the kingdom of Heaven." 

A beautiful childhood is a very beautiful reality. Partly 
because of the exquisite simplicity which tones down and 
harmonizes all its impulses. But, very often, its beauty is 
only known in its loss : — and we mourn in after years over 
hope, love, and peace, broken down by life's attrition; — yet 
fair to look upon, even in their ruins, (e) 

No one is likely to doubt that the belief we have been 
describing, is peculiar to and characteristic of Man. A 
more subtle question would be this ; — Suppose it could be 
taken away, how nearly would Man and brute approach each 
other ? * A question deserving the attention of every one, 
who lives 

"In self-adoring pride securely mailed." 

Probably, the proudest of mankind little think how deeply 
their culture, art, and refinement, are indebted to a faith 

(e) " Wisdom is Alchemy. Else it could not be Wisdom. This is its 
unfailing characteristic, that it ' finds good in everything,' that it renders 
all things more precious. In this respect also does it renew the spirit of 
childhood within us : while foolishness hardens our hearts and narrows 
our thoughts, it makes us feel a childlike curiosity and a childlike 
interest about all things. When our view is confined to ourselves, 
nothing is of value, except what ministers in one way or other to our 
own personal gratification : but in proportion as it widens, our sym- 
pathies increase and multiply : and when we have learnt to look on all 
things as God's works, then, as His works, they are all endeared to us. 

' ' Hence nothing can be further from true wisdom, than the mask of it 
assumed by men of the world, who affect a cold indifference about what- 
ever does not belong to their own immediate circle of interests or 
pleasures." Guesses at Truth, 2nd Ed.. 2nd Series, p. 200. 

* " Try to conceive a man without the ideas of God, eternity, freedom, 
will, absolute truth, of the good, the true, the beautiful, the infinite. 
An animal endowed with a memory of appearances and of facts might 
remain. But the man will have vanished, and you have instead a 
creature, more subtle than any beast of the field, but likewise cursed above 
every beast of the field ; upon the belly must it go, and dust must it eat all 
the days of its life. But I recal myself from a train of thoughts little 
likely to find favour in this age of sense and selfishness." Coleridge, 
Church and State. Note p. 50, Ed. 1839. 



272 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



shared by the lowliest. One point, at least, seems clear, — 
if Morality did not perish in the wreck, a true and inde- 
pendent moral sense would bring us back to a belief in 
our own souls, their immortality, and their God. 

Another question more essential to our purpose has been 
buried under heaps of fallacy and misconception. Theists 
are often told that the ideas of a Deity, — a future life, — 
and generally all that is conceived as supernatural, have no 
absolute trustworthiness; — they are not self-evident axioms, 
and they cannot be demonstrated. One answer to these 
alleged difficulties has been implicitly given in the last 
Chapter. If such objections are valid at all, they are valid 
against every practical first-truth therein considered. They 
are valid against all primary practical truths, looked at from 
the theoretical side, and tested by the rules proper to what is 
called pure Reason ; — Reason, that is to say, not applied, but 
speculative. But, then, it is from this very employment of 
tests upon truth not in pari materia, that the first stage of 
fallacy begins. The second step in error follows naturally from 
the first. Compared with the clearness and definition of mathe- 
matics, all other axioms and proofs appear dim and dubious. 
The consequence is, that our minds fall into trains of false 
comparison on the all-important subject of certitude. Errors 
of that kind are always growing mischiefs ; our tongues follow 
the lead of our thoughts, and hazy thinking becomes hazy 
speaking. Not only so, but words develope themselves into 
the leaders of thought ; and hazy speaking engenders a hazier 
thinking still. People take mathematical certainty to be the 
sole type of all true and valuable certainties. Practical maxims 
are spoken of, as merely probable, Right and Wrong as the 
efflux of moral sentiments* Few seem to be aware how the * 
philosophical arrangements of first-truths ought to be applied. 
They should be applied to discriminate the processes, by 
which various kinds of truths are discoverable ; — they stamp 
a character upon them, when discovered ; but they do not 
determine the intrinsic worth and validity of the discoveries. 

Why, let us ask, does Mathematical truth occupy so lofty a 

* Some people we may remark are unable to see any difference between 
sentiments and sentimentalities. 



BELIEFS OF REASON. 



273 



position ? Because, first, the constitution of our nature obliges 
us to accept its axioms, and by consequence each successive 
step in its impregnable demonstrations. Next, because we can 
verify so many of its theorems objectively. We apply them to 
remote planetary and stellar spheres beyond our own reach ; 
where our own minds can neither alter nor colour anything. 
What then ought to be the fair and legitimate inference from 
an issue magnificently tried throughout the celestial universe ? 
Surely this, and no other. It confirms, in the very highest 
possible degree, the truth-telling power of our own human 
nature. Whatsoever our mental constitution clearly compels 
us to accept, that same we ought to hold true, and maintain 
unswervingly. 

Henceforth, therefore, we ought to look upon our Reason as 
having been put upon its conclusive trial. Every year that 
passes renders the verdict if possible more triumphant. We 
ought, henceforth, to make our assent absolute and unhesi- 
tating in the case of those other truths, which, while things 
continue as they now are, can never be tried and confirmed 
by an appeal of the same description. 

It is not difficult to see how opposite would have been the 
issue from an employment of improper tests; — the test, for 
instance, of the Unthinkable. The universe, we should then 
have said, must be thought of as finite or as infinite. Either 
way it is inconceivable ; — therefore the Universe cannot exist 
objectively at all. 

Vicious as such a process would be, it is not so faulty as that 
of confounding the proper methods and attestations of specu- 
lative and practical truth* Our human consciousness must 

* It was by a reverse procedure that Kant shewed his greatness. He 
kept the two fields of thought apart, and applied to each a criticism un- 
sparing, but appropriate. Nothing could be more decisive than the result, 
though darkened in some degree by the critic's peculiar technicalities. 
Moral truth was placed upon the most sublime of elevations. Speculative 
reason could never rise beyond the limits of conditioned truth ; any 
attempt to extend its sphere issued in antinomy or blank negation. It 
left the human mind apparently oscillating between Idealism and limited 
Insight. But to this must be added a most important point too commonly 
forgotten. Though Speculative reason does not demonstrably prove, it 
renders conceivable by us those highest of all Ideas which our Practical 
reason shews to be necessarily and unquestionably certain for every one 

18 



274 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



in both cases give our data. We have to ask and obtain its 
answers, — but, in the two different spheres of knowledge, we 
must frame our interrogatories differently, and expect assu- 
rances differing not in degree of certainty, but in kind; — in 
value to human action ; — and in the mode of their deliverance. 
We inquire into Speculative truth by analysing it, until we 
arrive at undemonstrable axioms which assert their own 
validity. We assure ourselves that Practical principles are 
true by following them in their synthetic growth. Do they 
spring from a maxim we find ourselves urged by our own 
nature to accept, — and the opposite of which we cannot but 
broadly reject ; — and do they really work in the world, — 
exert an ennobling influence within their own domain, and 
intertwine themselves with the other truths and activities of 
our human life ? If so, we may be assured of their vitality 
and their certitude. We know them, in short, by their 
stringency, — and by a happy experience of their power. 
Consequently, our knowledge ought to grow and strengthen, 
as our human age and the world's age both roll on. Practical 
truth, thus tried and acknowledged, is indeed the silver thread 
which leads us always. Some shrink from trusting it when 
stretched across the grave ; yet, without it, all beyond is lost 
in haze, and our present life becomes enigmatical and self- 
contradictory. 

of us. Moral Truth thus opens to Man's eye a clear vista into the Time- 
less and the Absolute, to an immortal life beyond the grave, and to God 
the Sovereign both of Nature and of Man. It tells us the secret of true 
Causation, and with it of all that is most worth living for, the intrinsically 
greatest and Best of Humanity. And it binds every human being, as by 
golden links, to that ever present Divine throne, the shrine and oracle 
set up within his own breast. We ought always to remember that upon 
those grand truths which if practically certain cannot be ultimately false, 
Kant staked his all. They were the crown alike of his labours and his 
life. 

Addition. — By these remarks the present writer does not intend sub- 
scribing to all the Kantian conclusions respecting pure Speculative Reason, 
much less to those that have been asserted by many of Kant's disciples . 
Difference of opinion on such conclusions cannot, however, effect an 
honest appreciation of the clear and elevated principles maintained by 
Kant on the subject of independent Morality, as contradistinguished 
from the scheme which used to be termed Selfish, but is now commonly 
called Utilitarian. — See pp. 93-6 ante. 



BELIEFS OF REASON. 



275 



Let us then apply the tests (found valid in their own 
practical sphere) to the case of our belief in a Supernatural 
and supreme Power. But, that we may do so with more 
evident effect, it will be well to place in juxtaposition with 
it. another powerful belief, and bur progress will be rendered 
easier if we fix upon one which has already been, in part 
at least, under discussion. Nothing seems better fitted for 
this purpose, than what Professor Masson calls "the para- 
mount fact," resulting alike to Hamilton and to Mill, — the 
universal persuasion in men of their own existence, as beings 
distinct from, but related to, an external world around them. 
It will be observed that, thus described, the fact is of a most 
concrete sort, — our inner reality in relation to an outer reality, 
— -just as believing in a Supreme Being we believe in a Power 
that holds solemn relations to our individual selves and to 
our common Humanity. 

We have therefore to observe the impression made upon 
our human endowment of practical Reason, when looking face 
to face at these two fact-beliefs, which for brevity's sake we 
shall call the Natural and the Supernatural. 

Did the uninstructed and stammering childhood of our 
race, separate, in thought, the Supernatural from surrounding 
nature ? Can we absolutely say either yes or no to this 
inquiry? The "Heaven-Father" of pre-historic (/) day would 

(/) " Thousands of years it may be before Homer and the Veda .... 
Dyaus did not mean the blue sky, nor was it simply the sky personified ; 

it was meant for something else We shall have to learn the same 

lesson again and again in the Science of Religion, viz. that the place 
whereon we stand is holy ground . Thousands of years have passed since 
the Aryan nations separated to travel to the North and the South, the 
West and the East : they have each formed their languages, they have 
each founded empires and philosophies, they have each built temples and 
razed them to the ground ; they have all grown older, and it may be 
wiser and better ; but when they search for a name for what is most 
exalted and yet most dear to every one of us, when they wish to express 
both awe and love, the infinite and the finite, they can but do what their 
old fathers did when gazing up to the eternal sky, and feeling the presence 
of a Being as far as far and as near as near can be : they can but combine 
the selfsame words, and utter once more the primeval Aryan prayer, 
Heaven-Father, in that form which will endure for ever, 'Our Father 
which art in Heaven.' " — Max Muller, Lectures on the Science of Religion, 
pp. 171-2, 3. 



276 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



seem if fully considered to make the separation clear. The 
type-idea, thus outlined, is drawn, not from symbolizing and 
personified Nature, but from an actual, living, fatherly, Man. 
And the tendency of primitive Man might rather be to raise 
natural objects into living beings, than to lower persons into 
things. 

It is so, we are sure, with our children's apprehension of 
the Natural. They know a world of persons and things 
antagonistic to their own wills and efforts, but they begin by 
making the things into persons. A thwarted baby-boy beats 
the table, his kitten, and his nurse indifferently. So far as 
observation has been extended to the religious apprehensions of 
the very young, they would seem to spiritualize the material 
universe ; — to behold unseen powers in the changing clouds, 
and hear them in the sighing of the wind. Wordsworth's 
"Ode on Immortality" is a picture as full of childlike human 
truth, as it is of unearthly beauty. 

But, as regards both principles, the human train of thought 
is nearly similar in its first rise, and grows in definiteness 
and expansion by a nearly similar process. A true Man sets 
each principle to work, and from its working gathers its real 
value and verification. 

If the world outside him were a phantastic shadow, the 
practical conclusion fairly inferred would be quietism. , Boling- 
broke said to King Richard — 

' ' The shadow of your sorrow hath destroyed 
The shadow of your face." 

But, suppose both face and sorrow were themselves only 
shadows ? What worth in Man's body then, — what worth 
in his soaring mind ? The natural issue would be to drift 
down the shadowy* stream into a darker abyss of Nothing- 
ness. 

* Compare the Indian phrase "the magical illusions of reality, the so- 
called Maya of creation." Max Miiller's Sanskrit Literature, p. 19. Also 
Hitter's Gesch. der Philosophie, I. 101 seq., and the account in both of the 
philosophy of Quietism. The attractive side of it is given by Max Muller, 
pp. 18, 19, and 29. The National results are elegantly painted, pp. 30, 31. 
He concludes : "It might therefore be justly said that India has no 
place in the political history of the world India has moved in such 



BELIEFS OF BE A SON. 



277 



Speculation* must lay down its arms, as powerless against 
such a supposition. The evidence of our senses f themselves 
is resolvable into shadows. 

It was not by speculation that our strong Western will 
encountered the ideal enigmas of every day life. Act upon 
externalities, and they will react upon you. As a matter of 
fact, it is necessary to commence by admitting that the souls 
of others are as impenetrable to us, as the material things 
into which we cannot force our way. But, things and persons 
react upon us differently ; and we act upon them in widely 
different ways. By an exertion of our will, we can change or 
stop a natural tide of inorganic antecedents and consequents 
and direct it to our own purposes. Beings like ourselves, we 
must allure, manage, inform, and persuade. Soon we find, by 
experience, that other human beings are very like ourselves ; 
and the higher animals nearer to us than stocks and stones. 

a small and degraded circle of political existence that it remained almost 
invisible to the eyes of other nations." 

Few feelings are more deeply rooted, as in our individual, so in our 
collective human nature, than this same conclusion. Quietism culminates 
when Action appears useless because of a conceived Necessity or Unreality 
of Nature : — " Life is but a Dream — Let all sit still and fold their hands 
to slumber." 

* Speculatively considered, what can the weapon commonly called 
argument do against Idealism ? Both sides allow that man can neither 
cause nor annihilate sensible impressions. But they are supposably ideal 
phrases of susceptibility, which may be explained in more ways than one. 
On the inability of most men — (particularly Scotchmen,) to comprehend 
Berkeley's position, see Eraser's Ed., IV. 366, 7, 8, note. It gave rise 
to notably absurd rejoinders: " With the witty Voltaire ten thousand 
cannon balls, and ten thousand dead men, were ten thousand ideas, 
according to Berkeley. There is as much subtlety of thought, and 
more humour, in the Irish story of Berkeley's visit to Swift on a 
rainy day, when, by the Dean's orders, he was left to stand before 
the unopened door, because, if his philosophy was true, he could as 
easily enter with the door shut as open." 

t* "We cannot possibly identify the perception of expanded colour, 
which is all that originally constitutes seeing, with the perception of 
felt resistance, which is all that originally constitutes touching. Coloured 
extension is antithetical to felt extension. In fact, we do not see, we 
never saw, and we never can see the orange of mere touch ; we do not 
touch, we never touched, and we never can touch the orange of mere 
sight." Ibid. p. 394. 



278 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



We find this through the exercise of our own causal activities 
upon them. 

The idea of the Supernatural marches along no very dis- 
similar route. The strong man subjects Nature, but the Super- 
natural is above both it, and him. He cannot even possess the 
thought of the Supreme. Whether he will or no, it possesses 
Mm. To his reason, Nature cannot subsist, as the true and 
independent ground of anything ; — her laws are the servants 
of his volition ; — and her chain of antecedent and consequent 
hangs between a First and a Last, without giving any sufficient 
account of either. If the Universe began in a shining Nebula, 
the question remains unsolved, — what first brought the thin 
<3loud into being ? The practical Reason, confirmed by experi- 
ence, distinctly perceives that productive nature transforms 
all things, — but originates nothing ; — that, contrariwise, when 
human nature wills to commit a wrong, — it really originates 
the crime. A disputant may assert that Man's will originates 
no act; — the criminal is never guilty, — and the judge and jury 
who try him are not answerable for their own decision. The 
same disputant may add that the Court in which they sit is 
unreal, and their bodily persons only shadows. The one set 
of suppositions is as tenable as the other, and precisely as 
unpractical. 

In the common course of Nature, then, Mankind has learned 
to maintain, as a truth of reason, that the Supernatural Power 
is a Will, — that is a Personality. In other words Man becomes 
a Theist. 

As in Natural Realism, so in realistic Theism, we try how 
our principles will work. Realists in thought, we treat men 
and things as natural realities ; diverse when compared to- 
gether, but alike in outsideness as they stand related to our- 
selves. Action and reaction then go on as are to be expected. 
Life seems to us one long verification of the truth we began 
by accepting. — And so, too, it is with our belief in a Being 
Supernatural and Divine. If we succeed in figuring to our- 
selves a world of adaptation, order, law, progress, unity, we 
have but to open our eyes, and it appears spread out before 
us. If we think that the world's creation would blend all 
physical needs into pleasurable pursuits and satisfactions, we 



BELIEFS OF REASON. 



279 



may look and see the union accomplished. If we frame a 
scheme of trial and moral discipline, to raise the feeble and 
confirm the strong, its realization is not wanting amongst us. 
From our own feelings, we can imagine how a Father's eye 
would look pityingly down upon fear and sorrow, and all the 
strains incidental to moving laws ; the attrition of other wills, 
the tumults, failures, ill doings, and perversities of our sensitive 
and social existence. How a Father's hand would bind up all 
that is weak, wild, and wilful in his children, with threads of 
rainbow coloured hope and joyful anticipation; bidding them 
believe that ere long the uncertain dimness, which is as 
morning spread upon the mountains, shall brighten into steady 
splendour, shining on to a perfect and unclouded day. 

We find as a matter of fact that this hope is no stranger to 
the human breast ; that numbers live in it ; numbers have 
died for it ; and pre-eminently those of whom the world was 
not worthy. 

The growth of thought from a bare idea of the Supernatural 
to a belief in a pure and sublime Theism, — and the sufficient 
account it renders of the world, ourselves, and our destinies, 
must be looked upon as matters of fact in the work-day 
history of mankind. Practical human reason has really 
travelled by this track, and, from day to day, perceives new 
truths to verify the old conclusion. Every attempt to adapt 
other theories to the working facts become, by their unfitness 
for the purpose, indirect evidence for Theism. How short a 
time has passed since Campbell lamented over— 
" The hopeless dark Idolater of Chance ; " 

and since the authors of " Rejected Addresses " ridiculed a 
system which made the universe an accident.* — Now, chance 

* 1 1 From floating elements in chaos hurl'd, 

Self-form'd of atoms, sprang the infant world : 
No great First Cause inspired the happy plot, 
But all was matter — and no matter what. 
Atoms, attracted by some law occult, 
Settling in spheres, the globe was the result : 
Pure child of Chance, which still directs the ball, 
As rotatory atoms rise or fall. 
In ether launch'd, the peopled bubble floats, 
A mass of particles, and confluent motes, 



280 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



sounds as strangely in scientific ears as Fate did to our strong- 
willed forefathers. Next, came that unintelligible contradictory 
phrase, a "blind intelligence;" a thing called a mind, that 
goes it knows not whither, and moves it knows not why. 
From this thing, immersed in the darkest ignorance, and 
unconscious even of its own existence, we were asked to 
believe that arrangement, harmony, excellence, beauty, were 
the productions. No wonder if men soon concluded that 
a moving force, — material and soulless, — would equally fulfil 
the same exalted functions. And, surely, one thing is an 
account of the Universe as reasonable and as sufficient as 
the other. 

If we place a non-theistic theory in relation to our human 
inner nature, there ensues the same monstrous incongruity. 
The plenitude of loveliness, which overflows creation, as it 
were with multitudinous waves of light, we are asked to 
think of as the work of blind non -being. But, there is a 
greater plenitude of loveliness, in the good and noble acts, 
words, and thoughts of one bright soul of heaven-aspiring 
Man. Must we, then, believe that truth, sincerity, justice, 
rightness, goodness, purity, are all the offspring of a something 
infinitely lower than our weakest human will ? * — Is that un- 
known something to be also the beacon of our hopes, the refuge 
of each forlorn and shipwrecked brother, the happiness giving 
itself to satisfy the unsatisfied aspirations of our long- enduring 
hearts ? 

So nicely poised, that if one atom flings 

Its weight away, aloft the planet springs, 

And wings its course through realms of boun dless space, 

Outstripping comets in eccentric race. 

Add but one atom more, it sinks outright 

Down to the realms of Tartarus and night." 

" Rejected Addresses" pp. 115, 116. 
* " What are the core and essence of this hypothesis ? Strip it naked 
and you stand face to face with the notion that not alone the more ignoble 
forms of animalcular or animal life, not alone the nobler forms of the horse 
and lion, not alone the exquisite and wonderful mechanism of the human 
body, but that the human mind itself — emotion, intellect, will, and all 
their phenomena — were once latent in a fiery cloud. Surely the mere 
statement of such a notion is more than a refutation." Tyndall, Frag- 
ments of Science, p. 163. 



BELIEFS OF REASON. 



281 



Surely, the mockery of madness could go no further. What 
can the morally impotent or the morally imperfect do for us ? 
Even to the careless eye of common sense, it is clear at a 
glance, that with the Impersonal our distinctive spiritual life 
can have no possible relations. If this be so, the very first 
idea of Supernatural Power is not advanced. — Contrariwise, 
it is distorted, frustrated, nullified. And with it is destroyed 
our trust in our own conscious nature. The instinct of im- 
mortality lives and moves within us only to betray. — Man, 
— whose being is the highest reason for the world's whole 
being, — is henceforth a palpable inconsistency. There cannot 
in the dreams of fiction be found a stranger tissue of more 
startling, — or one might venture to say, — more revolting 
moral absurdities. And a moral absurdity contradicts the 
constitution of Man's mind, quite as thoroughly as an ab- 
surdity purely intellectual. It is, in reality, the most self- 
condemned of all conceivable contradictions. 

Let us place side by side with this issue, first, the commonly 
conceived relation between a Personal supreme Being and his 
creation ; — secondly, the apprehension of Theistic truth within 
the soul, as it comes to us substantiated by religious men. We 
shall, at all events, gain the advantage of a strong contrast 
between Theism and non- Theism ; — and strong contrast with 
shadows is often a strong enlightenment. 

First, then, to consider the idea of Creation as the work not 
of a blind thing, but a supremely wise and powerful Being. 
It is plain that (to say the very least) this idea "is encompassed 
with slighter and fewer difficulties. If a doubter is not con- 
vinced by the ordinary argument from Design, he cannot avoid 
admitting the fact of its possibility ; — that it is applicable, and 
has been applied, argued, and reargued, without any over- 
whelming rejoinder or refutation. And there are two obvious 
reasons why it has never been successfully refuted. One — the 
evident truth that, whatever rival theories* might or might 

* Mr. Mill speaks thus of the Design argument. " It is the best ; and 
besides, it is by far the most persuasive. It would be difficult to find a 
stronger argument in favour of Theism, than that the eye must have 
been made by one who sees, and the ear by one who hears." Mill 
On Hamilton, p. 551. 



282 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 

not be expected to do, this theory explains the world. Next 
— that no other attempted explanations have ever found a 
First ground for any existing thing. In the theory of Design 
it continues an open question how far we may conceive the 
Creator's first act as a grand finality,— the launch of a vast 
assemblage of worlds formed, — or, being formed ; — so built 
upon law and guided by far-stretching wisdom, that the 
Universe sails gloriously through the Ocean of Space like 
a thing of Life; each breath of Force, each wave of Time 
wafting it securely on. But, let any idea of a true creation 
bs admitted, and no belief in existing laws of any kind, will 
ever banish the great and good God from the world which He 
has created and made. His presence adds glory to its fabric, 
and, when we walk in its garden of delights, we feel that He 
walks and speaks there too* 

The argument from Creation to Creator forms the subject of 
the next Chapters. Therefore, we press it no farther here. 

The point to be remembered now, is that this line of reason- 
ing has alone offered a tenable explanation of the world's 
existence. And a like remark holds good of Natural Realism 
as opposed to Speculative Idealism. It is impossible (as we 
have seen), to prove or disprove either by bare argumentative 
abstractions. But, as a question of practical reason, the Natural 
Realist explains the outer world of individual existences, and 
his explanation tallies both with its phenomena and our own 
relations to them. Our material progress (that antithesis of 
oriental quietism), depends upon activities we should never 
have exerted had we not fully believed in a world of working 
energy within ourselves, and an outside world of reacting 
forces for us to work upon. 

From mere material progress, let us turn our eyes to the 
nobler civilization of Mankind. A respect for human life 
because it is human, — honour paid to all men, inasmuch as 
manhood possesses an intrinsic title to honour, — the desire to 

* So in Thomson's Hymn : — 

" Thy beauty walks, Thy tenderness and love. 
Wide flush the fields ; the softening air is balm ; 
Echo the mountains round ; the forest smiles ; 
And every sense, and every heart, is joy." 



BELIEFS OF REASON. 



283 



do justice and love mercy, — sympathy with privation, suffer- 
ing, and aberration, both moral and intellectual, — these are the 
true elements that soften and improve our race. And they 
are pre-eminently the dowry of nations believing in Theism. 
Theism is to these spiritual powers what Realism has been to 
material powers. Human beings are, by these two agencies, 
brought into contact with both the outer and the inner 
work of life. And as regards life's central work, the lesson 
of history is now what it always has been. To move man 
from a lower to a higher sphere, his soul must first be deeply 
stirred. And a spiritual stir and movement is the applied 
strength of a spiritual power, (g) 

We propose, then, to see by example, what Theism may be 
to mankind. Many examples will not be needed, provided 
those selected are typical. We shall therefore choose some 
two or three distinctive types. 

The task of selection reminds us to protest, once for all, 
against the weak and cynical way of illustrating human 
nature which threatens to become prevalent. If we want to 
see what a true man is, we must not seek his fossil effigies, 
by delving into the scanty and disputable records of primseval 
savagery, (h) and unearthing the crumbled seeds of better 
things, which died before coming to perfection. It is like 

(g) " The idea of God, beyond all question or comparison, is the one 
great seminal principle ; inasmuch as it combines and comprehends all 
the faculties of our nature, converging in it as their common centre ; 
brings the reason to sanction the aspirations of the imagination ; im- 
pregnates law with the vitality and attractiveness of the affections ; and 
establishes the natural legitimate subordination of the body to the will, 
and of both to the vis logica or reason, by involving the necessary and 
entire dependence of the created on the creator." Guesses at Truth. 1st 
Ed., pp. 122, 3. 

(h) Perhaps every cynic delighting in those records should be asked 
to define what he means by Savagery. Of savages there are evidently 
many sorts, e. g. : — 

(1) The children of our race ; — a condition not beautiful, yet not 
without hope. 

(2) Semircivilized tribes, generally addicted to " fire-water ; ' and other 
vices of civilization, without possession of its better things. 

(3) Barbarian princedoms, grown decrepit by reason of wars, caste 
domination, or a sensual and effete culture. 

(4) There are also a few wholly uncultured folk, who are more of 



284 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



estimating the Oak from a mouldy Acorn. It is worse ! — 
Barbarism tends to distortion and degeneracy. We might as 
wisely pronounce a maimed dwarf with carefully flattened 
forehead, the beau ideal of human strength and beauty, as seek 
to know the mind of man amid its wrecks and perversities. 
"We must rather look at our race in its strongest and noblest 
development. The healthy acorn grows into a spreading 
oak ; — the truly human child becomes, not a crooked dwarf, 
but an upright intellectual giant. The investigation of 
maimed deformities may have its interest for comparative 
purposes, but no ancient Greek nor Hebrew, no modern 
European nor American, ought to be painted with lineaments 
which are revolting to his higher nature. Let us help the 
savage by every means we can, except by asking him to sit 
for a model of Humanity. When we do this, we have 
assuredly lost our very best reason for helping him at all. 

The examples following, no one will doubt to be types 
of true and highly developed men. The first, is intended 
to shew how Theism stands out before the apprehension of 
a Man engaged in searching out abstract truth. 

The Philosophy of Sir W. Hamilton has become familiar to 
most people, so far as his theory of " the Conditioned " is con- 
cerned. They are aware that his mind dwelt on the specula- 
tive difficulties surrounding a knowledge of the Absolute, the 
self-subsisting First Cause, and true Ground of all things. 
Yet, to the veracity of God he appeals for the veraciousness 
of our primary beliefs. Over against a whole school of 
Idealists, he places, as the one fatal objection, this same 
veracity — "Either maintaining the veracity of God, they 
must surrender their hypothesis; — or, maintaining their 
hypothesis, they must surrender the veracity of God." * And, 

gentlemen and ladies than our highly civilized peoples ; — more truthful, 
honourable, and courteous ; — while, 
(5) Not a few are savages indeed ! 

These strictures serve as a reminder to add that by Theism is here 
intended the belief in a Supreme Being, the Father of Spirits, to Whom 
we shall give solemn account. But it is not meant to include some 
civilized superstitions, by means of which many men degrade and tor- 
ment their fellows. Of such men we say, They too are savages indeed ! 

* field's Works, p. 751. 



BELIEFS OF REASON. 



285 



if the existence of a Deity is known, there can be no doubt 
that His truth is amongst the highest and clearest to us, of 
all His essential attributes. We cannot (as Sir William says) 
" suppose that we are created capable of intelligence, in order 
to be made the victims of delusion ; that God is a deceiver, 
and the root of our nature a lie." * Therefore, he drew a 
wide distinction between, on the one hand, knowing the 
Absolute and the Supreme so as to examine and explain His 
nature, and, on the other hand, believing that He truly is, so 
as to affirm the fact of His being, and the necessary conse- 
quences of His existence. " When I deny," he writes, " that 
the Infinite can by us be known, I am far from denying that 
by us it is, must, and ought to be, believed ! " f — In this 
belief, Sir William saw a sufficient reason for accepting, as 
Mr. Mill advises all to accept, " the inexplicable fact." And 
indeed the problem of truth perpetually does come, (evade the 
conclusion as we will), in one shape or another, to this same 
necessity of final acceptance. Mr. Coleridge's Friend is one 
long investigation into this necessity, and he fairly closes his 
argument by saying that always, — start from whatever point 
we may, — "reason will find a chasm, which the moral being 
only, which the spirit and religion of man alone can fill up. ' | 

For Sir W. Hamilton, Theism bridged the vast abyss ! No 
one could more strongly estimate its vastness, and the poverty 
of our visual powers when we stand beside it ; — the dim feeling 
which makes us shrink back from its awful verge. But 
Theism became to him the strength of a noble- life; — a life of 
much self-sacrifice, and meagre earthly recompence. (i) 

* Reid's Worhs, p. 743. 

+ Metaph. II. p. 530. 

% The Friend, vol iii. p. 214. Ed. 1844. 

(i) The portrait of a lonely thinker searching out God has been painted 
in lively colours, as follows : — " O my friend, you would do me most 
grievous wrong, if you thought my heart empty of those feelings which 
make man the standing miracle of Nature. If your child fell into the 
river, would you stop to tell or think how you loved it, how dear and 
winsome and precious it was to you, how blank your home and bruised 
your heart would be without it ? Or would you plunge into the stream 
in utter recklessness of your life, bear it swiftly out of the devouring 
flood, and then in silence strain the rescued little one to your bosom ? 
Characters differ. It is mine to act, as well as to feel. What, do 



286 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



The next typical thinker we shall quote is one pre-eminent 
for his careful study of the constitution of Man, the course, 
the aims, and aptitudes of his moral existence. It seems 
hardly necessary to add the name of Bishop Butler. The 
reader will find pleasure and instruction, if he peruses 
Butler's two sermons on the Love of God, from the second 
of which the following passages are cited : — 

" Nothing is more certain, than that an infinite Being may himself 
be, if he pleases, the supply to all the capacities of our nature. All 
the common enjoyments of life are from the faculties he hath endued 
us with, and the objects he hath made suitable to them. He may 
himself be to us infinitely more than all these : he may be to us all 
that we want. As our understanding can contemplate itself, and our 
affections be exercised upon themselves by reflection, so may each be 
employed in the same manner upon any other mind ; and since the 
supreme Mind, the Author and Cause of all things, is the highest 
possible object to himself, he may be an adequate supply to all the 
faculties of our souls ; a subject to our understanding, and an object 
to our affections. 

" Consider then : when we shall have put off this mortal body, 
when we shall be divested of sensual appetites, and those posses- 
sions which are now the means of gratification shall be of no avail ; 
when this restless scene of business and vain pleasures, which now 
diverts us from ourselves, shall be all over ; we, our proper self, shall 
still remain ; we shall still continue the same creatures we are, with 
wants to be supplied, and capacities of happiness. We must have 
faculties of perception, though not sensitive ones ; and pleasure or 
uneasiness from our perceptions, as now we have. 

" There are certain ideas, which we express by the words, order, 

you imagine, prompts a thinker to give his days and nights to the rescue 
of man's faith in God, his heart-trust and moral inspiration and spiritual 
joy, when all these are put in "jeopardy by the increase of a knowledge 
that is but half comprehended, even by those who in their own special 
lines are nobly increasing it 1 What lies back of the intense activity 
of his brain, as he toils over problems that wring the beads from 
his brow, gives up to the lonely pursuit of truth the hours that might 
be fertile of the prizes clutched after by the crowd, and turns his back 
on prizes that even he holds dear ? What but a [mighty hunger for 
God can explain this weary, unending search for Him 1 What else can 
explain the unthanked effort to make plain a path to Him that no man 
wants to travel ? " American Index, J an. 15, 1874. 



BELIEFS OF REASON. 



287 



harmony, proportion, beauty, the furthest removed from anything 
sensual. Now, what is there in those intellectual images, forms, or 
ideas, which begets that approbation, love, delight, and even rapture, 
which is seen in some persons' faces upon having those objects 
present to their minds ? — ' Mere enthusiasm ! ' — Be it what it will : 
there are objects, works of nature and of art, which all mankind 
have delight from, quite distinct from their affording gratification to 
sensual appetites ; and from quite another view of them, than 
as being for their interest and further advantage. The faculties from 
which we are capable of these pleasures, and the pleasures them- 
selves, are as natural, and as much to be accounted for, as any 
sensual appetite whatever, and the pleasure from its gratification. 
Words to be sure are wanting upon this subject : to say, that every- 
thing of grace and beauty throughout the. whole of nature, every- 
thing excellent and amiable shared in differently lower degrees by the 
whole creation, meet in the Author and Cause of all things ; this is 
an inadequate and perhaps improper way of speaking of the divine 
nature ; but it is manifest that absolute rectitude, the perfection of 
being, must be in all senses, and in every respect, the highest object 

to the mind 

" Now, as our capacities of perception improve, 

we shall have, perhaps by some faculty entirely new, a perception of 
God's presence with us in a nearer and stricter way ; since it is cer- 
tain he is more intimately present with us than anything else can be. 
Proof of the existence and presence of any being is quite different 
from the immediate perception, the consciousness of it. What then 
will be the joy of heart, which his presence, and the light of his counte- 
nance, who is the life of the universe, will inspire good men with, 
when they shall have a sensation, that he is the sustainer of their 
being, that they exist in him ; when they shall feel his influence to 
cheer and enliven and support their frame, in a manner of which we 
have now no -conception ? He will be in a literal sense their strength 
and their portion for every * 

Of the last writer here adduced, it is needless to say more 
than that amongst living authors, he is rarely equalled in his 
subtle analysis of the Under and emotional side of humanity. 

11 The personal relation sought, is discerned and felt. The Soul 
understands and knows that God is her God ; dwelling with her 
more closely than any creature can ; yea, neither Stars, nor Sea, 

* Butler's Sermons, p. 184 seq.. 



288 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



nor smiling Nature hold God so intimately as the bosom of the 
Soul. What is He to it ? what, but the Soul of the soul ? It no 
longer seems profane to say, ' God is my bosom friend : God is for 
me, and I am for Him.' So Joy bursts out into Praise, and all things 
look brilliant ; and hardship seems easy, and duty becomes delight, 
and contempt is not felt, and every morsel of bread is sweet 

" . . . . But Oh philosopher, is all this a contemptible dream ? 
thou canst explain it all ? or thou scornest it all ? Whatever 
theory thou may'st form concerning it, it is not the less a fact 
of human nature : one of some age too : for David thirsted after 
God and exceedingly rejoiced in Him, and so did Paul ; and the 
feelings which they describe are reproduced in the present day. 
To despise wide-spread enduring facts is not philosophic ; and 
when they conduce to power of goodness and inward happiness, 
it might be wise to learn the phenomena by personal experience, 
before theorizing about them. It was not a proud thing of Paul 
to say, but a simple truth, that the spiritual cannot be judged 
by the unspiritual. 

" The single thought, ' God is for my soul, and my soul 
is for Him,' suffices to fill a universe of feeling, and gives rise 
to a hundred metaphors. Spiritual persons have exhausted human 
relationships in the vain attempt to express their full feeling of 
what God (or Christ) is to them. Father, Brother, Friend, King, 
Master, Shepherd, Guide, are common titles. In other figures, 
God is their Tower, their Glory, their Rock, their Shield, their 
Sun, their Star, their Joy, their Portion, their Hope, their Trust, 
their Life." * 

. Such is Theism, penetrating the head and heart of Man ; 
appealing to his intellect, his conscience, and his affections. 
Such is Theism ; sending upwards, out of Man's spirit, aspira- 
tions which " dumb driven cattle " cannot breathe — often the 
'sole sweet incense from Earth to Heaven. It is possible that, 
to some readers, the passages extracted will sound like the 
acjents of a foreign tongue. Of such it may properly be 
asked, whether any man has a right so to call in question 
another sane man's honest consciousness, as to deny its reality, 
worth, and excellence ? There are ears on which the music 
of Shakespeare's words, or Mozart's notes, fall tuneless and 
unmeaning. Yet, who on that account would deny the true 

* The Soul, her Sorrows and her Aspirations, pp. 103, 104. 



BELIEFS OF REASON. 



289 



sense and delight of poetry, rhythm, and melody ? We 
cannot, in reason, forget that even from ordinary men a small 
amount of affirmation, if conscientious, unselfish, and collected, 
outweighs and annihilates a host of perplexing doubts. But, 
every great Man's thought is at least a grand fact ; every 
expression of it a benefaction to his fellow-men. And, as 
respects the mighty power with which Theism stirs and impels 
the soul, we may rest absolutely assured that, where one 
human being is found to give it utterance, thousands have felt 
the movement, and have silently governed their life's work by 
it. Happily, the brightest gifts of our existence are also the 
commonest ; — the sunshine of the world, and the sunshine of 
the Soul. 

Countless numbers have, indeed, professed to discern by an 
inward sense the reflected reality of a Supreme Being. They 
who feel it most deeply, do not attempt to explain the Sub- 
stance of which an imperfect copy exists within themselves, 
acknowledged, yet inexplicable ; at once the greatest enigma, 
and the noblest fact of their essential being. They are con- 
tent to look upwards to the Supreme Mind they have found ; 
— to treasure such knowledge as they have; and adore its 
object. Many of those who have thus believed and acted are 
amongst the most excellent and perfect of our race. 

Has any theory of the Universe which ignores the original 
of an image discovered within ourselves, accounted for what 
we perceive through our senses, our consciousness, and our 
moral insight, — so well as that theory which acknowledges 
and reverences a God ? 



19 



CHAPTBK V. 
PRODUCTION AND ITS LAW. 



" UoWa ra deiva, i(6v8h dvdpuirav deivorepov 7re\a." 

Sophocles, Antigone. 

"These be the two parts of natural philosophy, — the inquisition of 
causes, and the production of effects ; speculative, and operative ; natural 
science, and natural prudence." Bacon's Advancement of Learning. 
Book II. 

" The perception of real affinities between events (that is to say, of 
ideal affinities, for those only are real), enables the poet to make free 
with the most imposing forms and phenomena of the world, and to assert 
the predominance of the soul. 

" Whilst thus the poet animates nature with his own thoughts, he 
differs from the philosopher only herein, that the one proposes Beauty as 
his main end ; the other Truth." Emerson. Idealism, 

" The question of questions for mankind — the problem which underlies 
all others, and is more deeply interesting than any other — is the ascer- 
tainment of the place which Man occupies in nature and of his relations 
to the universe of things . Whence our race has come ; what are the 
limits of our power over nature, and of nature's power over us ; to what 
goal we are tending ; are the problems which present themselves anew 
and with undiminished interest to every man born into the world." 
Huxley. Man's Place in Nature, p. 57. 

"Der Mensch ist das einzige Geschopf, das erzogen werden muss. 
Unter der Erziehung namlich verstehen wir die Wartung (Yerpflegung, 
Unterhaltung), Disciplin (Zucht) und Unterweisung nebst der Bildung. 
Dem zufolge ist der Mensch Saugling, — Zogling — und Lehrling." Kant. 
Padagogik, Einleitung, 

" Man's Intellectual Progress consists in the Idealization of Facts, and 
man's Moral Progress consists in the Realization of Ideas." Whewell's 
Moral Philosophy, Additional Lectures, p. 129. 

" Say ! when the world was new and fresh from the hand of its Maker, 
Ere the first modelled frame thrilled with the tremors of life, .... 
.... Forms of transcendent might — Beauty with Majesty joined, 
None to behold, and none to enjoy, and none to interpret ? 



Say ! was the Work wrought out ! Say was the Glory complete ? 
What could reflect, though dimly and faint, the Ineffable Purpose 
Which from chaotic powers, Order and Harmony drew 1 
What but the reasoning spirit, the thought and the faith and the 
feeling ? 

What, but the grateful sense, conscious of love and design ? 
Man sprang forth at the final behest. His intelligent worship 
Filled up the void that was left. Nature at length had a Soul." 

Sir J. Herschel. Essays, etc., p. 737. 

" War ein verstandiger Sinn auch mir doch beschieden gewesen ! 
Aber es tauschte mich triigrischer Pfad, hieher mich, dann dorthin 
Lockend, Nun bin ich bejahrt und doch unbefriedigt von allem 
Forschen. Denn wo ich den Geist hinwende, da lost sich mir alles 
Auf in Eins und Dasselbe : da alles Seyende, allzeit 
Allwarts angezogen, in ahnliche, eine Naturtritt." 

J acobi. Werke, Vorrede zu David Hume, p. 103 



' ' Throughout all future time, as now, the human mind may occupy 
itself, not only with ascertained phenomena and their relations, but also 
with that unascertained something which phenomena and their relations 
imply. Hence if knowledge cannot monopolize consciousness — if it must 
always continue possible for the mind to dwell upon that which trans- 
cends knowledge ; then there can never cease to be a place for something 
of the nature of Religion ; since Religion under all its forms is dis- 
tinguished from everything else in this, that its subject matter is that 
which passes the sphere of experience." Herbert Spencer. First 
Principles, p. 17. 



SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER V. 



The argument of this chapter turns upon the analysis of concrete 
processes carried on throughout human life ; together with their 
correlations or correspondent factors visible in rerum naturd. All 
these being complex activities, resolve themselves into series of 
simpler activities, which, though separable in thought, follow each 
other inseparably as real working elements of human or natural 
productions, — or of both. 

In each productive process of Mankind,- we perceive : — 

1. A purpose conceived, — (the end or final cause.) 

2. A power or force which has to be (a) discovered and (b) fitted to 
this human purpose. 

2. (a.) Tins implies that the object in quest exists, or is capable of being 
evoked into active existence, as a Force or operative Law capable 
of producing real effects. Otherwise, it would be no auxiliary to 
Man. Viewed per se, and apart from its being fitted to his special 
purpose, it must therefore be a natural power or law, and answers 
to what Bacon calls a Form or Formal cause.* 

(It is plain that human production requires some particular utiliza- 
tion of a producing force, wider in itself than this or any other 
ancillary application of its energies. Compare Bacon's philosophic 
observation f that the operative Form ' ' deduces the given nature 
from some source of being which is inherent in more natures.'') 

2. (b.) A number of such powers, forces, laws, forms, present them- 
selves to the intellectual eye of an inventor or producer. Possible 

* Nov. Org. II. 4, last paragraph. " For a true and perfect rule of operation then 
the direction will be that it be certain, free, and disposing or leading to action. 
And this is the same thing with the discovery of the true Form. For the Form of 
a nature is such, that given the Form the nature infallibly follows. Therefore it 
is always present when the nature is present, and universally implies it, and is 
constantly inherent in it. Again, the Form is such, that if it be taken away the 
nature infallibly vanishes. Therefore it is always absent when the nature is absent, 
and implies its absence, and inheres in nothing else." 

f Sentence following immediately in N. 0. II. 4. " Lastly, the true Form is such 
that it deduces the given nature from some source of being which is inherent in 
more natures, and which is better known in the natural order of things than the 
Form itself. For a true and perfect axiom of knowledge then the direction and 
precept will be, that another nature be discovered which is convertible with the given 
nature, and yet is a limitation of a more general nature, as of a true and real genus. 
Now these two directions, the one active the other contemplative, are one and the 
same thing ; and what in operation is most useful, that in knowledge is most true." 
Ellis and Spedding, Yol. IY. pp. 121, 2. 



SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER V. 



295 



fitness, (adaptability) — must therefore next be determined. And 
here the power is no longer considered separately, but in relation 
to some Formation. 

In 2, therefore, we have (a) a simple fact or general law of Force ;— 
and (b) a correlated fact, or specialized law of Production. 

3. Finally, for operative activity, there must be an efficient cause put- 
ting in movement the productive law, over and above its intelligent 
apprehension just presupposed. This efficient Cause, as seen always 
in human Production, is a Will. 
Now each several step in this series comes before us as an act of Mind. 
But out of this number one only needs to be examined here ; — 
because 

Purpose (1) has been treated of in Chapter II. 
Will (3) occupies the close of this Essay. 
No. 2, therefore, (divisible into a and b,) makes the proper subject- 
matter of the present Chapter. It has been written to meet the 
difficulties felt by a certain number of reasoners respecting the 
argument from Design. They are very often indisposed to accept 
that argument, because its analogical nature makes it appear 
circuitous ; and because they hesitate when attempting to appreciate 
its exact value : compare p. 53 ante. There is also a lurking dread 
of that spectral shadow called Anthropomorphism, haunting some 
minds with a pertinacity, which may be estimated from p. 54 seq. 
By such reasoners let the present Chapter, — which proceeds not by 
way of analogy, but through a direct analysis of acknowledged facts 
— be read as a substitute for Chapter II. Or, they may if they 
please, consider the present and two following Chapters as a Treatise 
entirely distinct from the rest of the volume ; this present Chapter 
serving as a brief statement of the case for £>%sico-theology ; while 
the two arguments ensuing sketch out Ethico- or Moral Theology ; 
on which complementary modes of thought see p. 107 ante, together 
with text and notes now about to follow. Finally, by all those who 
accept the reasoning from Design as already explained, let both it 
and our other various lines of argument be treated as separate 
evidences of Natural Theology, each resting on its own grounds, but 
all consilient at last. 

Analysis. — Advance and Retrogression of Discovery and of Civilization. 
Progress dependent on realizing the relativity between Power and 
Function. This condition of success is examined at length. 

Perception of existing Relations, and creation of new ones by human 
Reason and Will. Illustrations from histories of Invention, Art, 
Education, and Self-Education. 

Production of Change within ourselves. Self conquest, Self formation, 
and Re-formation. Inability of animals arises from domination of 
motives unalterable by themselves and instinctively apprehended. 
Training relative to motor instincts of various sorts. Self-training 
requires freedom from the domination of any single unbalanced 



296 



SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER V. 



or unalterable impulse. It implies the power of using motives as 
counterpoises, and of introducing new elements into the sphere of 
our ideals. 

Influence of human presence upon the education of animals ; influence 
of the Divine Idea upon Man. 

Transition from the sphere of Intellect to that of Will in relation to the 
"World. The Spring of Production a movement of Will ; the Idea of 
Production an insight into the Mind of Nature; discovered not 
logically, but as shewn in operation in Nature. Law and Idea, 
Intelligence and Matter. Manifold Forces imply a central Unity. 
Putting aside the analogical inference from apparent Purpose, the 
question of operative Law (Force, Form, Mind,) is examined in its 
many activities, their correlations and their underlying Oneness. 

Natural Law in action : hypothesis of limited intelligence. Case of 
Unreason, Creation by Chance. 

Breadth of Law seen in its general fitnesses, and grander unities. Excep- 
tional effects in "Functioning." 

Character of Mind in Nature. Law, type, idea. Adaptation even if 
purposed is not Arbitrary. A Supreme Will must be a sovereign 
Reason. 

Perfection of Mind in Nature estimated from convergent fitnesses and 
correlations, as exemplified by Sight and Hearing. Also by their 
effects in producing Beauty, Happiness, and a sense of sympathy. 
Mind in Nature not bare intelligence, but possessing emotional 
attributes, not harsh nor unlovely, but tender and loveable. 

Additional Note. 

On the Doctrine of Chances applied to the structural Development of 
of the Eye, by Professor Pritchard. 



CHAPTEE V. 



PEODUCTION AND ITS LAW. 

" Life/' said Dr. Johnson, " has not many things better than 
this : " — " we were," Boswell explains, " driving rapidly along 
in a post-chaise." But what if the two men, congratulating 
themselves upon their speed, could have read (with some 
approach to second-sight) Dr. Darwin's lines — 

" Soon shall thy arm, unconquer'd steam ! afar 
Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car. 
Or on wide-waving wings expanded bear 
The flying chariot through the fields of air." 

The slow barge now traverses the wide Atlantic as fast as 
even fast-living America can desire. The rapid car whirls 
across England in a few brief hours. With what half-envious 
astonishment, might Dr. Johnson have computed the arrowy 
flight of these iron creations over land or water ; — with what 
sententious wisdom might he not have dilated on the uncon- 
trolled dissemination, Sir, of books, knowledge, and civility ; 
— to say nothing of vile whiggism or possible rebellion ! 

No wide-waving wings have as yet wafted us over rivers 
and mountains. But some inventors still cherish a hope of 
applying steam steerage, and perhaps steam propulsion, to 
very large balloons. 

It is curious to think of the many centuries, during which 
men saw elastic vapour lifting their kettle lids, without catch- 
ing the idea of steam power, or reflecting on the movement 
it produced. Curious, too, to remember how slowly the idea 
grew, after the Marquis of Worcester had explained the re- 
lation between the power and its movement-producing func- 



298 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



tion. His " fire-water- work " (as he called it), " drove up 
water by fire," at a rate of 1250 lbs. through one foot, to 
the consumption of 1 lb. of coal. This is about 200 times the 
waste of a good modern engine. But the principle was there. 
Water flowed without intermission, at a height of forty feet, 
driven only by the elastic force of steam. The introduction 
of atmospheric pressure half obscured the original conception ; 
steam-power seemed in danger of losing its proper functions. 
Passing by Papin and Savery,* the descent of Newcomen's 
piston depended on the production of a vacuum beneath it ; at 
much cost of heat and labour, much waste of fuel and force. 
Strange, that for so many years nobody thought of intro- 
ducing steam-power above the piston, as well as below it. 

The retrograde path which science sometimes treads, is 
also clearly shewn in the long-delayed invention of the 
paddlewheel steam-boat. The first patent was taken out 
by Jonathan Hulls in 1736, and his rare pamphlet may be 
seen at the British Museum, or in Mr. Partington's reprint.! 

* Savery was celebrated by Dr. Darwin as the man, who, — 

' ' Bade with cold streams the quick expansion stop 
And sank the immense of vapour to a drop." 

Savery's patent (the first granted for a steam engine), is dated 1698. 
Papin suggested in 1695 a partial vacuum under a piston for raising 
water, so as to make the pressure of the air the moving power. Most 
people are aware of the effect upon invention produced by the great 
mining interest, — the necessity of pumping out underground adits, water 
logged, and therefore inaccessible. 

f At the end of his Lectures on the Steam Engine. 

Hulls ' was the first attempt to convert the reciprocating movement of 
the piston-rod into rotation ; and it does not rival the crank in simplicity. 
But there is a contrivance for equalizing the first irregular motion by 
weights, which possesses real beauty, and has the further advantage of 
readily increasing or diminishing the velocity of the wheels. The wheels 
themselves are fixed at some little distance astern of his boat which he 
intends to be used for towing ships. They are thus (as Professor Rigaud 
observes) nearer ' ' to what may be considered as the centre of the com- 
pound body, which they were the means of propelling. " 

Such was the earliest patent ; but proposals for the same object had 
been made still earlier. Papin submitted one to the Royal Society in 
1708, comprehending a "boat to be rowed with oars moved with heat," 
and engines capable of throwing bullets and raising water. Sir Isaac 
Newton reported on the invention and recommended experiments, but 



PRODUCTION AND ITS LAW. 



299 



Strange, that so good a thing should have continued so long- 
neglected ; — up to the days of the first Napoleon, and, (fortu- 
nately perhaps for civilization,) under the Conqueror's imperial 
rule. The same fate, however, befel Trevithick's " walking- 
engine " made in 1802. He applied high-pressure steam- 
power to a railway locomotive which really travelled (1805) at 
Merthyr Tydvil. Every one knows how slowly this invention 
has grown up into the useful goods-train or the luxurious roll 
of the express. 

The rela.tion between a power so well tested, and propulsion? 
was thus long in being fitted with perfect mechanism, and 
presented to the eyes of mankind as a familiar every day phe- 
nomenon. But the idea of propelling carriages by other means 
than animal sinews, had been working the reverse way ; and a 
desirable end suggested a search for means. Men tried to fit 
other powers to the function ; the problem gave rise to wind- 
driven chariots, and other curious contrivances for travelling 
by land, which are graphically described by Lovell Edge- 
worth and several of his contemporaries. Then, too, came 
the desire to sail against the wind, and independently of water 
currents. A vignette in the first Edition of Beivick's Birds 
(vol. 1, p. 257), published in 1797, shews us a ferry-boat cross- 
ing a river by means of a windmill which turns paddle 

the Society could not or would not grant a sum not exceeding £15 for 
the purpose. Again, the Acta Eruditorum for 1690, preserves a previous 
proposal made by Papin, accounts of which will be found in Farey's 
Treatise on the Steam Engine, and Professor Rigaud^s Early Proposals 
for Steam Navigation. In the latter publication (a paper read to the 
Ashmolean Society) is also contained (pp. 11-14) a summary of the most 
wonderful among all records relating to this subject ; — the trial of Blasco 
de Garay's steam-boat at Barcelona under Charles V. "The experiment 
was made the 17th June 1543 on board a vessel called the Trinidad, of 
200 barrels burden, which had lately arrived with wheat from Colibre. 
The vessel was seen at a given moment to move forward and turn about 
at pleasure, without sail, or oar, or human agency, and without any 
visible mechanism except a huge boiler of hot water, and a complicated 
combination of wheels and paddles." The entire or partial credibility of 
this record has been often argued pro and con. Professor Rigaud thinks 
it "not impossible that even a magnificent invention, like this, may 
have sunk into oblivion." Perhaps not, considering that the Spain of 
Cervantes is the Spain of Southey, and Mr. Borrow. A clock may stand 
still, but a nation which does so is retrograde. 



300 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



wheels * The engraver has marked by a ripple at the vessel's 
bows the strength and swiftness with which she stems the 
stream. 

The history of these machines carries with it a very useful 
moral. It furnishes an apt similitude to the delays and retro- 
gressions which are found in the onward march of mankind, 
in the gains and triumphs of civilization. These sometimes 
occur to nations through error, violence, and wrong. Com- 
pulsory celibacy, forced upon the most cultured men, was, 
according to Mr. Darwin, one cause why Spain, notwith- 
standing her great generals, navigators, and inventors, f has 
been distanced by freer nations. Then, too, as he adds, " the 
holy Inquisition selected with extreme care the freest and 
boldest men in order to burn or imprison them. — In Spain 
alone, some of the best men .... were eliminated during 
three centuries at the rate of a thousand a year.t The streams 
of both invention and human improvement resemble, in this 
respect, the current of a mighty river. We always encounter 
— and always ought to expect — whirlpools, back-waters, and 
other sinuosities, as we descend the flowing tide. 

Very frequently, civilization is retarded by another kind 
of difficulty, also besetting the inventive arts. Like them, 
Progress depends upon its capacity for happily realizing the 
relativity (a) between Power and Function. The philan- 

* The Chinese seeing our steam-ships at Chusan (in the war of 1841, 2), 
made paddlewheel vessels driven by men inside their hulls. Ignorant 
of steam-power, they achieved an engine without its principle. So too 
Prince Rupert gave a rotary motion to oars by horse-power, producing 
a greater velocity than sixteen watermen could impart to the Royal 
barge. 

t See second note on this chapter. 

J Darwin's Descent of Man, I. p. 179. Mr. Darwin adds in a note 
that "Sir C. Lyell had already (Principles of Geology, 1868. II. 489) 
called attention, in a striking passage, to the evil influence of the Holy 
Inquisition, in having lowered, through selection, the general standard 
of intelligence in Europe." 

(a) The term " relativity " is employed here on account of its breadth 
and comprehensiveness, and because it does not imply the adoption of 
some special hypothesis as to the essence of things or formative principles 
themselves j — such theorizing being no necessary condition of the present 
line of thought. 

Let it be observed, however, that any law of the natural world by virtue 



PRODUCTION AND ITS LAW. 



301 



thropist sometimes, — the craftsman often, — has only to think 
of the function required, and to grasp a relation pre-existing 

of which the apprehended relativity becomes operative, must be conceived 
as in its own nature genetic or causative, in order to explain Production. 
What is here meant may easily be understood by a few common-sense 
reflections. 

The word " Law " is one of the most ambiguous expressions possible. 
Perhaps its most familiar use is in statistical science, where it usually 
means the result gained from averages. For example, birth-rates, death- 
rates, and rates of exchange are spoken of as laws of increase, of mortality, 
and of the money market. Sometimes nothing but the generalized fact is 
signified ; sometimes it is intended to imply that these formulae govern, 
or ought to govern social questions, or problems of political economy. 

In like manner, when a law is the verbal embodiment of any principle, 
it may be considered as a perfectly abstract proposition ; or else as a 
governing rule or maxim, under which definite and actual cases can be 
brought. The principles of arithmetic or geometry are laws to which 
every practical question involving number or measurement must be 
submitted. The laws of thought govern our reasonings, or at least they 
ought to do so. 

Another way of looking at Law is to consider it in its commonest origin 
— i.e., as the expression of a law-maker's will. But when a writer on 
Natural Theology speaks of the laws of the physical world, and then adds 
that " law implies a lawgiver," he either supposes himself to have demon- 
strated the applicability of this maxim in relation to his own science ; — or 
if not he is simply assuming the whole question at issue. [Compare 
Additional Note B, to Chapter II. p. 98, seq.] 

The remaining most usual employment of the word, is to designate a 
Force, some actual moving power tending to realize itself in some way, 
working out a function either for good or evil, developing the secret of its 
own existence by the effects which it produces. 

Take an example from real life. A medical man coming to a certain 
rural district, observed its high death-rate, traced it to the very great 
prevalence of small-pox in the place, and formulated a law embodying the 
results of several years averages which appeared sufficiently surprising. A 
further acquaintance with the habits of the neighbourhood disclosed the 
fact that inoculation was continually practised, and as continually kept 
secret on account of the penalties attached to it. The inquirer took 
advantage of the opportunity afforded by a custom he could not control 
to investigate its consequences. A few years later, he arrived at exact 
conclusions determining the law of activity exerted by the virus under 
certain conditions. In other words, he found the genetic law of its 
operation. 

Now, if the death-rate, — a piece of statistical law, — be contrasted with 
this last named law of virus-growth, the difference between these two 
formulae is at once obvious. Without any scientific discussion or refining, 



302 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



in the laws of the natural world, — fit it to its own purposes, 
and usefully employ the adaptation. This was the case when 
elastic vapours of many kinds were examined relatively to 
their power of producing movement. Each deeper investi- 
gation brings a clearer insight into a more deeply-hidden 
law. The apprehension of " Heat as a mode of Motion," (b) 
is an instance in point. 

we grasp a broad common-sense distinction, which is all that seems needed 
here. For our purpose, it would be useless to inquire whether the law of 
virus-growth may be resolved into laws higher and far more recondite still. 
An inventor seizing the useful law he wants, will not stop to ask any such 
questions ; he will apply his power and realize the function he has in 
view at the moment. 

Another common-sense instance is to think of the properties of any 
familiar substance ; the acridity of an alkali, for instance ; its power of 
effervescing with acids, and neutralizing them ; its behaviour as a reagent 
in a variety of ways, long to enumerate, but practically useful. When we 
have described all these properties, have we denned the whole substance ? 
In other words, is the alkali anything more than a bundle of properties 
momentarily known to us ? Undoubtedly there is one point more to be 
noticed ; its principle of permanence, until brought under new conditions 
which dissolve its unity, and destroy the inter-coherence of its properties. 
Now whatever maintains this unity is the law of its substance. There 
are laws of nature under which both it and countless other substances are 
formed, continue, and are dissolved, making way for unending series of 
fresh combinations. And this mode of apprehending the unities we call 
substances, raises the self-same idea of genetic law which has been under 
consideration. If we are asked whether we can explain such laws further, 
we usually reply by saying "these are the forces of the natural world." 
Their correlations and modifications rule the kingdom of nature, and the 
great globe itself ; — nay, they wield the empire of the Universe ! 

Such laws, such forces, have engrossed the attention of physical philo- 
sophers from the rude beginnings of inquiry. They have led to specula- 
tions of all kinds ; — the best known of which is the distinction between 
Form and Matter in existing objects ; — a distinction in common use 
amongst persons who but dimly guess at the past issues which it raises. 
Nothing, however, can be said on such a topic here, except by way of 
reference to the philosophic system of Francis Bacon. [Compare p. 92 
ante, and the Synopsis prefixed to this chapter.] 

(6) One of the most curious morceaux in the history of Science, is the 
fact that the nature of Heat has been several times thus determined, viz. , 
by Bacon, Locke, and Count Rumford. See Tyndall on Heat as a Mode 
of Motion, Section II. , and Appendix. 

Bacon determines the nature of Heat by way of exemplifying "The 



PRODUCTION AND ITS LAW. 



303 



Sometimes — in human affairs oftenest — the mind originates 
a new relation between Power and Function, and launches it, 
like an unimagined locomotive, whirling and dashing onwards 
throughout the world of men. The will of a powerful king 
or conqueror, statesman or missionary, evokes a new power ; 
gives it life and motive energy, and sends it out to perform its 
intended function amongst millions of mankind, and for many 
generations. Hence, Kant said there were two things which 
filled him with awe : one, the starry heavens, that mightiest 
example of mighty powers orderly performing their appropriate 
functions ; -the other, Man's Will, a power less mighty in one 
sense, but belonging to a sphere where mass and measurement 
are not, and performing functions signalized too frequently by 
wrongful determination. Functions which, whether rightly or 
wrongly performed, involve a mightier Something than all 
the inorganic worlds ever displayed, a Something we define by 
that deepest of ideas and most awful of truths, — Responsi- 
bility. 

The whole subject admits of extensive illustration. The 
relativities of Power and Function are infinitely varied in 
Nature, Art, and Thought ; in the unity of the whole world, 
and in the disunited world of Humanity. But, however 
varied in their sphere of operation, all relations between Power 
and Function coincide in one characteristic. They appeal to 
mind alone, and by mind alone can be apprehended so as to 
become operative. Those that belong to the human sphere of 
activity are in part the perceptions of Mind ; in part they are 
evidenced to our consciousness as its own creations. 

If we look at the inorganic world, Man apprehends such a 
relativity as that between steam-power and propulsion, and 
applies it. In the realm of pure mathematics, there are powers 

Investigation of Forms." It is his sole instance, and is most instructive. 
(Nov. Org. II., 11 seq., in E. and S. Vol. IV., pp. 127-155.) "For 
example," he begins, " let the investigation be into the Form of Heat." 
It need scarcely be observed that the twofold relation of his " Forms" to 
4 ' Metaphysic and to Physic is one of the least explained parts of Bacon's 
vast system. How little his theory of Induction is commonly understood 
may be perceived by any skilled reader of Macaulay's well known Essay 
— a composition (to borrow a great schoolmaster's words) " displaying an 
almost inconceivable amount of nescience." 



304 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



of another sort, which (when applied) require allowances to be 
made in ''functioning " them. Provided metal, timber, fric- 
tion, and cross-circumstances have their proper margin given, 
those abstract entities * absolute in truth, become realized in 

* It is worth observation how often the abstract entity — (the principle 
of the whole realization) — is forgotten even by scientific persons. For- 
gotten, we say, since surely forgetfulness is the true origin of many futile 
attempts at explaining away essential principles. The following very 
curious case in point is narrated by S. T. Coleridge : — " There is still 
preserved in the Royal Observatory at Richmond the model of a bridge, 
constructed by the late justly celebrated Mr. Atwood (at that time, how- 
ever, in the decline of life), in the confidence that he had explained the 
wonderful properties of the arch as resulting from the compound action of 
simple wedges, or of the rectilinear solids of which the material arch was 
composed ; and of which supposed discovery his model was to exhibit 
ocular proof. Accordingly, he took a sufficient number of wedges of 
brass highly polished. Arranging these at first on a skeleton arch of 
wood, he then removed this scaffolding or support ; and the bridge not 
only stood firm, without any cement between the squares, but he could 
take away any given portion of them, as a third or a half, and appending 
a correspondent weight, at either side, the remaining part stood as before. 
Our venerable sovereign, who is known to have had a particular interest 
and pleasure in all works and discoveries of mechanic science or ingenuity, 
looked at it for awhile stedfastly, and, as his manner was, with quick and 
broken expressions of praise and courteous approbation, in the form of 
answers to his own questions. At length turning to the constructor, he 
said, ' But Mr. Atwood, you have presumed the figure. You have put 
the arch first in this wooden skeleton. Can you build a bridge of the 
same wedges in any other figure 1 A straight bridge, or with two lines 
touching at the apex ? If not, is it not evident that the bits of brass 
derive their continuance in the present position from the property of the 
arch, and not the arch from the property of the wedge ? ' The objection 
was fatal, the justice of the remark not to be resisted." — The Friend. 
Vol. III., pp. 176, 7.) 

Addition. Of "those abstract entities absolute in truth," Bacon 
writes (Nov. Org. II. 9), " Let the investigation of Forms, which are (in 
the eye of reason at least, and in their essential law) eternal and immu- 
table, constitute Metaphysics :" and again (Ibid. 15), "To God, truly, the 
Giver and Architect of Forms, and it may be to the angels and higher 
intelligences, it belongs to have an affirmative knowledge of forms im- 
mediately, and from the first contemplation. But this assuredly is more 
than man can do, to whom it is granted only to proceed at first by 
negatives, and at last to end in affirmatives, after exclusion has been 
exhausted." And of their utility, as applied truths, he says (Ibid. 2), 
11 Though in nature nothing really exists beside individual bodies, per- 



PRODUCTION AND ITS LAW. 



305 



practice. When we come to organization, particularly higher 
organisms, the functions of the biological kingdom are more 
complex. Yet the trainer of animals knows how to combine 
and modify old powers so as to produce new ones. The pointer, 
the greyhound, the racehorse, and the hunter are all examples. 
Then, too, men manipulate men. See how the face of all 
Europe is covered with training establishments of every 
description, (c) Youths are fitted for army, navy, bar, parlia- 

f orming pure individual acts according to a fixed law, yet in philosophy 
this very law, and the investigation, discovery, and explanation of it, is 
the foundation as well of knowledge as of operation. And it is this law, 
with its clauses, that I mean when I speak of Forms ; a name which I the 
rather adopt because it has grown into use and become familiar." 

And these passages are in perfect harmony with Bacon's precept " that 
Physic should handle that which supposeth in Nature only a being and 
moving (and natural necessity), and Metaphysic should handle that which 
supposeth further in nature a reason, understanding, and platform 
(ideam)." (Advancement. II. E. and S. p. 353.) The reader will also per- 
ceive how natural it was for Bacon to place mathematical science "as a 
branch of metaphysic ; for the subject of it being Quantity; not Quantity 
indefinite, which is but a relative and belongeth to philosophia prima (as 
hath been said,) but Quantity determined or proportionable ; it appeareth 
to be one of the Essential Forms of things ; as that that is causative in 
nature of a number of effects ; . . . . and it is true also that of all other 
forms (as we understand forms) it is the most abstracted and separable 
from matter, and therefore most proper to metaphysic ; which hath like- 
wise been the cause why it hath been better laboured and enquired than 
any of the other forms, which are more immersed into matter. For it 
being the nature of the mind of man (to the extreme prejudice of know- 
ledge) to delight in the spacious liberty of generalities, as in a champion 
region, and not in the inclosures of particularity ; the mathematics of all 
other knowledge were the goodliest fields to satisfy that appetite." (Ibid, 
p. 359.) Compare this Essay, p. 91 ante, together with foot-note. 

(c) " Observe," writes the late Sir B. Brodie, " observe the effect 
which the general diffusion of knowledge produces on society at large ; 
how it draws the different classes of it into more free communication with 
each other ; how its tendency is to make the laws more impartial, bring 
even the most despotic governments under the influence of public opinion, 
and show them that they have no real security except in the good will of 
the people. Knowledge goes hand-in-hand with civilization. It is neces- 
sary to the giving full effect to the precepts of the Christian faith. It 
was from the want of it that Galileo was tortured by the Inquisition, that 
Servetus was burned by Calvin, that the Huguenots were persecuted and 
slaughtered by Louis XIV. , and that in numerous other instances one 
sect of Christians has conceived it to be their duty to exterminate another. 

20 



306 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



ment, politics. The powers of attention, memory, habit, are all 
pressed into service, just as the inventor of locomotives calcu- 
lates the strength and tenacity of iron, brass, copper, and other 
materials, fits each pipe, crank, and wheel, to its intended func- 
tion, and ends by speeding his fellows past the doors of their 
fellow-men. Now, the manipulation of these materials is a 
calculable process, and succeeds at last. But there is one dis- 
appointment often awaiting the manipulator of mankind. His 
failure arises from the fact that the moral purpose, which he 
must take for granted, is very commonly wanting among those 
he undertakes to educate. 

Another inventor of the highest sort, an artist, conceives a 
majestic thought. It becomes to him the work of his life, the 
function he ardently desires to realize. To the true Art-man, 
his conception is a noble ideal, and some instinct, or proclivity 
of his own nature, teaches him how to adapt it to the ears and 
eyes, the intellect and feelings of his race. There are sounds 
which die in their newborn sensations of delight, yet haunt 
the memory while consciousness remains. There are colours 
appealing to one single organ of perception, and, through it, 
penetrating the soul with images that rise again and again in 
nightly and daily dreams. And there are words, the forms 
and creations of our distinctive human mind, through which it 
exercises its sublimest powers, and which are (in themselves) 
among the most sublime. have their proper functions. 

Age after age, from country to country, from nation to nation,* 

It is a misapplication of the term civilization to apply it to any form of 
society in which ignorance is the rule and knowledge the exception. If a 
Being of superior intelligence were to look down from some higher sphere 
on our doings here on the earth, is it to be supposed that he would regard 
the Duke of Buckingham, dancing at the French Court, and scattering the 
pearls with which his dress was ornamented, on the floor, as being really 
superior to an Australian savage ; or that he would see in the foreign 
Prince, who at a later period exhibited himself at another Court with his 
boots glittering with diamonds, any better emblem of civilization than in 
the negro chief, who gratifies his vanity by strutting about in the cast-off 
uniform of a general officer?" Psychological Inquiries. Part II., pp. 14, 15. 

* "A few phrases of Aristotle," says Dr. Brown, (Works I. p. 341,) 
" are perhaps even at this moment exercising no small sway on the very 
minds which smile at them with scorn." Mr. Carlyle asks, " Do not 
Books still accomplish miracles, as Runes were fabled to do 1 . . . . Con- 



PRODUCTION AND ITS LAW. 307 

they have moved the souls of readers to emotion, reasoning, 
will, activity. Noble words, expressing ideas unknown to all 
intelligences below man, and called into existence by him, pro- 
long their own lives by extending his intellectual and affective 
life. They burn like incense within the temple of his spirit, 
but, unlike incense, survive undyingly in the immortal flame 
which kindles them. 

There is a still loftier and more solemn function we all exer- 
cise — or ought to exercise — in or upon the sphere of our own 
souls. To us is committed the task, our human task, — morally 
imperative on no sentient beings inferior to ourselves, — of trans- 
forming and reforming, that is (to all intents and purposes) 
truly forming our own inward nature. We have not, at 
present, to consider how near heaven may and does draw to 
earth, in this highest of works known to us who dwell beneath 
the sky. But the absolutely human part of it belongs to this 
place. 

Every one has learned how hard it is to break through even 
one bad habit. The evil has in most cases enchained body as 
well as mind. A drunkard's hand is naturally reached out to 
lift the cups it has been used to lift. His thirst, too, recurs at 
the accustomed hour ; — and the readers of " Elia " know some- 
thing of what happens when it is left unslaked. A tingling 
and straining of the palate is associated with the sight of the 
eye; the drunkard's throat burns when he sees the draught 
before him ; his frustrated desire is followed by the most fright- 
ful sufferings throughout his disorganized nervous system. 
The same is true of other like habituations ; as may be read in 
De Quincey's Opium Eater, and in the last book of Charles 
Dickens, left behind him an unfinished fragment. It is true, 
also, of countless smaller customs which prevent many a man 
from achieving what Hooker calls " great masteries." Every 
muscle, fibre, and organ of our frame, performs easily the 
functions it has been used to perform, but undergoes a strain 
if put out of its usual course. 

The mind (as well as the body), has its laws of habit and 

sider whether any Rune, in the wildest imagination of Mythologist, ever 
did such wonders as, on the actual firm Earth, some Books have done." 
Heroes, p. 252. 



308 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



association. We perceive this fact most readily in the less 
perfect intelligence of the animal kingdom, of untutored man, 
and of people who are more inured to action than to reflection. 
The more rudimentary the mind, the more real is its state of 
subservience to association and habit, which may then be pro- 
perly termed its governing laws. But it would be improper to 
apply this word " governing " to the same laws in connection 
with higher natures. In a man whose reason and will have 
attained their manly majority, such laws have ceased to be 
governors ; — their province is simply administrative. Deposed 
from their rule over his existence, they become his ministers, 
servants, instruments. There is, thus, a compensatory consti- 
tution of human nature, whereby the light within us, which 
lighteth every man, may be said to make us free.* It exempts 
us, that is, from the sway of customary laws which guide and 
reduce to subjection the merely animal intelligence. 

A habit broken is a customary law broken. And any one 
who breaks through a customary law already inwoven with 
the fibres of his own life, is a man par excellence. And the 
deeper that inweaving, — the greater the laceration of living 
fibres, — if he rends them in obedience to duty, and because to 
do otherwise would be to do wrong, the more truly and em- 
phatically he is a Man. Again, if we proceed to ask by what 
means he breaks the bonds of custom, the Manhood of his act 
appears still more distinctly. His purpose may be, and often 
is, accomplished by setting a higher law of his being over 
against a lower; — putting a more really human power in 
movement to tame and quell some animal propensity. But 
then, what is that secret strength which apprehends and 
evokes the higher law ? What is the central spring that 
moves the strictly human power, and converts it from a 
sleeping capacity for good, into an acting and living energy ? 

* No writer has ever dwelt more on this truth than Coleridge, and no 
writer ever had a stronger reason for dwelling upon it. Perhaps the 
ordinary public has seldom been more unjust than in its estimate of 
Coleridge's addiction to opium. The occasion of his first use of it was a 
venial error, his servitude was heavy, and the account of his sufferings 
and struggles most deeply affecting. Then, his final victory (respecting 
which so little is generally said) was a very noble moral achievement. 



/ 



PRODUCTION AND ITS LAW. 



309 



Clearly, it is the Man's truest humanity; — the endowment 
which makes him Man. 

There are lives of men plainly told, and undoubted, where 
re-formation, — that is se£/-formation, — appears like a flash of 
electric fire. The Will in such men has energized, just as 
intellect flashes out in its noblest condition of genius ; and can 
best be described by the poet or the seer who knows what it 
is to create, and new create. These lives more than realize 
Csesar's boast; — the truly human soul came to itself, — saw 
itself, — and overcame. The conqueror did a deed which, 
(truly done,) was done for ever, and yielded him the presage 
of perpetual peace. 

Histories of self-conquest do, however, remarkably differ in 
respect of the time employed upon the work. Some victories 
are, as we have said, rapid and brilliant as the march of 
Alexander, — others slow and embarrassed, like the weary 
path of a pilgrim through deserts of rolling sand. But no 
pilgrim who is in earnest need despair. Putting aside all 
consideration of supernatural aid, he may take courage from 
the essential greatness of his own human being, when con- 
trasted with the being of all creatures below mankind. 

The comparison sets out from this question : — What can 
merely animal nature do to raise itself ? Man, we know, can 
train certain brutes — he can entrap all ; — but no brute can in 
any wise deliver himself from the snare of a single appetite. 
The weakness, as well as the strength, of animal intelligence 
lies in the vividness of its instincts. Animals appear conscious 
of the working of powers within themselves ; and they appre- 
hend those functions, with the performances of which their 
powers are correlated. Hence, in part at least, the pleasure 
of a bird in nest-building ; a bee in storing her comb, or a 
predacious creature in its successful pursuit of prey. But the 
relation between animal power and function appears so nearly 
fixed, as to be hedged round by narrow limits ; and only in a 
very small degree susceptible of modification. So far as we can 
discover, the brute is deficient in the means of self-education, 
for three distinct reasons. One, because he cannot escape 
fulfilling the normal functions of his unreasoning impulse. In 
the second place, because he is unable to overcome the urgency 



310 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



of one innate power, by opposing to it the claims and vigour of 
another. Thirdly, he can never introduce anything new into 
the relativity between power and function. He can command 
no spring of high aim or creative thought, which might give 
new purpose to his better powers, or open out some further 
sphere of activity before unknown. — Were this possible, he 
might lift the functions of his -common life above their old 
destinies, and above themselves. — And this would be a work 
of self-education. 

To pursue our comparison, — we must remember that the 
ability for self-education and the capacity for being educated, 
are correlatives ; and we may measure the one by the other. 
The animal world has never shewn strength enough to raise 
itself very high ; — it has never ceased to be distinctly animal. 
But, has it ever possessed latent powers for which opportunity 
was always wanting ? Mankind, for their own purposes, have 
(we know) continually been testing (d) the endowments of 

(d) Men have aimed at accomplishing their purpose partly by training 
animals, and partly by breeding through select specimens of each race. 
The two principles thus relied on are habit and heredity. Respecting the 
latter of these a note of considerable length had been intended in this 
place. But the reader interested in the general question can learn suffi- 
cient details in Dr. Carpenter's Mental Physiology together with the 
authorities therein referred to by him. 

The following instances adduced by Mr. Wallace to show how 
improvement through heredity is visibly limited are very remarkable. 
" In the matter of speed, a limit of a definite kind as regards land 
animals does exist in nature. All the swiftest animals — deer, antelopes, 
hares, foxes, lions, leopards, horses, zebras, and many others — have 
reached very nearly the same degree of speed. Although the swiftest of 
each must have been for ages preserved, and the slowest must have 
perished, we have no reason to believe there is any advance of speed. 
The possible limit under existing conditions, and perhaps under possible 
terrestrial conditions, has been long ago reached." He immediately 
proceeds to place in contrast with these, some examples where progress is 
not thus barred. " In cases, however, where this limit had not been so 
nearly reached as in the horse, we have been enabled to make a more 
marked advance and to produce a greater difference of form. The wild 
dog is an animal that hunts much in company, and trusts more to 
endurance than to speed. Man has produced the greyhound, which 
differs much more from the wolf or the dingo than the racer does from 
the wild Arabian. Domestic dogs, again, have varied more in size and in 
form than the whole family of Canidse in a state of Nature. No wild 



/ 



PRODUCTION AND ITS LAW. 



311 



inferior creatures. How high, then, can man by his endeavours 
raise the animal race ? — He can generally train them to a 
greater quickness in the exercise and nicety of their own 
instinctive powers, and a more enduring performance of their 
instinctively presented functions. By reward and punishment, 
he can inure them to some degree of self-restraint ; and he 
takes advantage of a thousand pretty impulses and fondnesses 
of animal nature, to call into being attachment, — nay, often 
passionate devotion, — towards himself. In this sense, Man has 
been styled the God of his domestic brute — his horse, his dog, 
his elephant. It would be a curious subject of reflection, to 
inquire what effect might possibly be produced upon the 
human mind by the visible presence, and incessant influence, 
of beings, as much higher than men, as men are higher than 
brutes ? The moment we start this idea in our minds, it is 
difficult to evade an impression that Man mast be a desolate 
creature, if he can never in some way see the Invisible, (e) 

dog, fox, or wolf, is either so small as some of the smallest terriers and 
spaniels, or so large as the largest varieties of hound or Newfoundland 
dog. And, certainly, no two wild animals of the family differ so widely in 
form and proportions as the Chinese pug and the Italian greyhound, or 
the bulldog and the common greyhound. The known range of variation 
is, therefore, more than enough for the derivation of all the forms of 
Dogs, Wolves, and Foxes from a common ancestor." Wallace. Natural 
Selection, pp. 292, 3. 

Dr. Prichard's accounts of similar variations in his Natural History of 
Man and other ethnological works are particularly interesting. 

Habit is a topic more germane to the subject of self -training, and is 
therefore examined at some length in our text. 

It seems natural that the empire of both Habit and Heredity should be 
strongest over the purely automatous, and the instinctive or semi-instinc- 
tive actions of mankind. Witness the effect of Caste institutions, Guilds, 
and family vocations. Regular occupation struck a certain visitor to this 
world as producing a like result : — 

" Nimbly," quoth he, " do the fingers move 
If a man be but used to his trade." 

(e) " They that deny a God destroy man's nobility ; for certainly man 
is of kin to the beast by his body ; and, if he be not of kin to God by his 
spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature. It destroys likewise magna- 
nimity, and the raising of human nature ; for take an example of a dog, 
and mark what a generosity and courage he will put on when he finds 
himself maintained by a man, who to him is instead of a God, or ' melior 



312 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



To leave this curious point. Nothing appears more really 
conclusive against all supposed capacity for great development, 
than the history of what are called "learned animals"; — of 
the mechanical means necessarily employed for teaching them, 
and the mechanical results obtained. There is indeed no better 
word to describe the true state of the case, than the term 
" mechanical," as opposed to everything that is ideal, or truly 
creative. (/) If a brute could idealize the laws of outward 
nature, — or the laws connecting his own powers with their 
proper functions, he might see them as a Man does, and give 
them a fresh existence within his own intelligence. He would 
then be able to invent an alphabet, conceive a picture, and 
view the properties of outward objects as universals inwardly 

natura ' ; which courage is manifestly such as that creature, without that 
confidence of a better nature than his own, could never attain. So man, 
when he resteth and assureth himself upon divine protection and favour, 
gathereth a force and faith, which human nature in itself could not 
obtain ' ; therefore, as atheism is in all respects hateful, so in this, that 
it depriveth human nature of the means to exalt itself above human 
frailty." Bacon. Essay on Atheism, p. 56. 

" What joy to watch in lower creature 
Such dawning of a moral nature, 
And how (the rule all things obey) 
They look to a higher mind to be their law and stay ! " 
Remains of A. H. Hallam, privately printed. 

(/) The difference between brute and Man appeared so vast to Bacon 
that, following Telesius in this as in some other respects, he adopted as a 
doctrine the duality of the human soul. He maintains it at length in the 
De Augmentis iv. 3, a chapter which begins thus : — " Let us now pro- 
ceed to the doctrine which concerns the Human Soul, from the treasures 
whereof all other doctrines are derived. The parts thereof are two ; the 
one treats of the rational soul, which is divine ; the other of the irrational, 
which is common with brutes. . . . Now this soul (as it exists in man) is 
only the instrument of the rational soul, and has its origin like that of 
the brutes in the dust of the earth. . . . For there are many and great 
excellencies of the human soul above the souls of brutes, manifest even to 
those who philosophise according to the sense. Now wherever the mark 
of so many and great excellencies is found, there also a specific difference 
ought to be constituted ; and therefore I do not much like the confused 
and promiscuous manner in which philosophers have handled the 
functions of the soul ; as if the human soul differed from the spirit of 
brutes in degree rather than in kind ; as the sun differs from the stars, 
or gold from metals." 



PRODUCTION AND ITS LAW. 



313 



apprehended. In this way, he would acquire exemption 
from the reign of mechanism, and live a really creative life. 
Possible conceptions — ideal functions — would require new 
powers to realize them ; — and these powers would be searched 
for and found. Or, vice versa, an idealized power, — a power 
seen, (not as it is, but as it may be) — would lead to the 
discovery of fresh functions, — new fields of enterprise, — new 
realms of imagination. 

It is manifest at a glance, how far in fact these conquests 
are from the world of creatures, by us, therefore, called "un- 
reasoning. Art, letters, and abstract thought, are no visitants 
of the animal sphere. Words cannot come where thoughts 
are not; and therefore language, in the human meaning of 
language, is unknown to brutes.* And no effort made by 
Man has ever been successful in sharing with his humble 
companions any one — (much less all) of these attainments. 
His artistic sense of Beauty, and power of giving it varied 
expression, find no Echo beneath himself ; he can in no 
wise teach by historical record, poetry, abstract calculation, 
or abstract thought. Neither can he impart the true secret 
of social sympathy, — and forbid the stricken deer to weep 
and die alone. Intelligence without imagination, cannot 
conceive a sorrow so lonely or unseen. Therefore, it knows 
little of deep sorrow, — for even the mortally- wounded bird 
will strive to hide its wound, f 

* We have it on Coleridge's authority that " Lord Efskine, speaking 
of animals, hesitating to call them brutes, hit upon that happy phrase — 
'the mute creation.'" Would this were true! exclaims some invalid, 
nervously agonized by cats and dogs, cocks and hens, and listening with 
horror to their various cries and noises. But strictly speaking Lord 
Erskine was right, — for the animal world is mute as far as real language 
is concerned. Compare Max Miiller on the " Bow-wow Theory." Lectures 
on Language, Series I. Lecture ix. 

t The Poet's thought, not more imaginative than true, should be kept 
in mind when estimating the difference between gregariousness and 
society. If the latter be held a development of the former, it must have 
been transformed in the progress of its descent. Where affinities are 
really traceable between the human and the unreasoning world, they 
may perhaps be referred with greater probability to a common ancestry 
than to a lineal pedigree. And the more remote the alleged origin, the 
less unlikely it may appear. 



314 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



Now, in each and all of these respects, every human being 
devoted to self-education starts from the plain fact, that Man 
is educable : — 

" Parents first season us, — then schoolmasters." 

The master of many a middle-school has frequent occasion 
to say with Horace ; 

"At ingenium ingens 

Inculto latet hoc sub corpore." — 

And the schoolmaster, also, knows that a little spark will 
often light into fire some vast store of emotional as well as 
intellectual elements lying asleep within * 

We therefore speak (if we speak correctly), of educating an 
animal in a totally different sense from educating a boy. For, 
facts are as we have stated them, whatever theories may be. 

There is one more point of contrast to stimulate and en- 
courage the self-educating portion of Mankind; and this point 
is the most characteristic endowment essential to Humanity. 
A man is not creative by virtue of his ideals alone, however 
bright and beautiful those visions of his intellect may be. He 
calls into existence that, which as yet is not, by virtue of his 
Will. We know this, although inexplicable, to be true ; — 
partly from the evidence of our own Consciousness, — which 
asserts that it is so, and partly from the evidence of Morality, 
— which says that it must necessarily be so. Were it otherwise, 

* " Sir Humphrey Davy, when a boy, was placed under a schoolmaster 
who neglected his duties, and adverting to this subject in a letter addressed 
to his mother after he was settled in London, he says, ' I consider it as 
fortunate that I was left much to myself as a child, and put on no par- 
ticular plan of study, and that I enjoyed much idleness at Mr. Coryton's 
school. I, perhaps, owe to these circumstances the little talents I have, 
and their peculiar application. What I am I made myself. I say this 
without vanity, and in pure simplicity of heart.'" Brodie's Psychological 
Inquiries, I. 29. 

"The regular course of studies, the years of academical and pro- 
fessional education, have not yielded me better facts than some idle 
books under the bench at the Latin School. What we do not call 
education is more precious than that which we call so. We form no 
guess, at the time of receiving a thought, of its comparative value. And 
education often wastes its efforts in attempts to thwart and balk this 
natural magnetism, which is sure to select what belongs to it." Emerson. 
Spiritual Laws. 



PRODUCTION AND ITS LAW. 



315 



no amount of Criminality could make a Criminal responsible. 
And this truth of responsibility is one which may occasion 
serious reflection to us all; to some of us sad remembrances. 

Man, considered as causal or creative mind, cannot but act 
upon the world without, as well as the world within himself. 
And perhaps the nearest idea we are able to form of the process 
of production, is the inter-action of power and function, evoked 
by a Will, (that is a Cause) ; and continuing operative by aid of 
ordinary laws and relativities of nature, (g) One man resolves 
to construct a steam engine, and on steam-power he concen- 
trates his thought. He conceives the relation between watery 
vapour and propulsion ; — and by using arbitrary signs, formu- 
lates and measures it. Then, he considers the laws and pro- 
perties of metals, fits each contrivance into place and produces 
his machine. Another determines to commit a murder. He 
wavers — debates — wills the deed, and says, — 

" I am settled, and bend up 
Each corporal agent to this terrible feat." 

Every reader of Macbeth sees displayed before his eyes the 
airy dagger; the human muscle strained to clutch the shadow 
first, — afterwards, the reality ; — the time, place, circumstances, 
all combined, followed up — worked out, till the murderous 
man has chained all conditions of success to his behest; — 
fulfilled his slowly-matured purpose, — and become, as in Will, 
so in act, a murderer. A third human being endeavours to 
invent a method for teaching the deaf and dumb; — spends 
a life in labouring among his silent tomb-like pupils, and 
succeeds to his joy and their inestimable benefit at last. He 

(g) "We can command Nature only by obeying her ; nor can Art avail 
anything except as Nature's handmaiden. We can affect the conditions 
under which Nature works ; but things artificial as well as things natural 
are in reality produced Not by Art but Nature. Our power is merely 
based upon our knowledge of the procedure which Nature follows. She 
is never really thwarted or controlled by our operations, though she may 
be induced to depart from her usual course, and under new and artificial 
conditions to produce new phenomena and new substances. 

1 ' Natural philosophy, considered from this point of view, is therefore 
only an answer to the question, How does Nature work in the production 
of phenomena?" R. L. Ellis. Preface to Bacon's Philosophical Works, 
Yol. I. p. 59. 



316 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



awakens powers lost in the shadow of death, and incites them 
to the performance of those true and appropriate functions, 
from which they had been incapacitated by a dwarfed and 
thwarted development. Before he aroused them, all such 
powers were only possibilities, visible to his hopeful eye. Now, 
they are utilized and happy activities; and, like impulses 
down a long electric chain, perpetuate themselves for genera- 
tions after the benevolent inventor is taken from the race he 
had loved and educated. 

There are two features in which all these productive men 
resemble each other. One, the creative influence of a purely 
human will, which not only sees what is not as though it is, 
— but also determines that it shall be. The other, a way of 
looking at, or rather, through Nature, as something more than 
an assemblage of facts or phenomena ; — of penetrating to the 
mind of Nature, — her ideal laws legible by the intellectual 
eye of Man ; — and finally, of putting each required law into 
motion, — that is to say, converting an idea into a force, by 
the movement of the producer's Will. 

And the same is true of every useful producer, from the 
man who grows corn and wine, to the politician by whose 
foresight is arranged a treaty which gives Europe the blessing 
of half a century's peace. There is, probably, no example of 
production more definite than the work of a real statesman. 
A gifted human mind determines to pursue the thing that is 
just and right and good ; sees where the means to be utilized 
may be found and enforced ; touches the right spring of activity 
and power, and leads his fellow-men into a path of precedent 
or constitution for which ages may consecrate his memory. — 
But, let us suppose that he or any other true producer falls 
short of realizing his idea. Then, the act of Will would be in 
its essence as noble a reality as the deed itself. Yet the work 
intended, — the production must needs be lost. Creative will, 
as an efficient cause, would have moved within the moral 
sphere ; but beyond, and into the outside world of men and 
things, its activity must have failed to penetrate. 

When the case comes before us in this manner and is fairly 
weighed, we see that the man who wills a good choice, reflects 
to his fellows the image we are accustomed to call Divine. 



PRODUCTION AND ITS LAW. 



317 



And that the man who produces a good act reflects to his 
fellows the further likeness and idea of a Creator. The will 
of man reflects a supreme will, when it refuses the evil and 
chooses the good; — the creative energy of man reflects a 
supreme energy, when it produces actual good ; working and 
remaining effectual in the world. These human reflections 
may be feeble shadows, and far away from the Supreme ; — as 
distant as earth and stars asunder, but they are typical images 
nevertheless. Man, in whom the Theist finds the impress of 
God, is by his power of Causality, as far raised beyond the 
laws of material existence, as animal life and movement are 
superior to the clods of soil on which the living creature walks, 
with a consciousness of being exalted above what he treads 
upon. 

If these far away reflections, so striking to a Theist, are, by 
an unbeliever, pronounced insufficient proofs of Theism, — they 
remain still of very great value to the argument — Who shall, 
in the teeth of them, assert a reign of law in opposition to a 
reign of Causation, when we perceive that Causality is the 
grand endowment underlying the highest intelligence in this 
world, and distinguishing man from every inferior creature ? 
A large class of objections dies in the fact that there is known 
to us a power which can truly originate actions; — a clear 
spring of volitional creativeness. And, as we have already 
seen, it is this human power which endows us with the faculty 
of self- education, and, at the same time, lays -upon us the 
burden of responsibility. It exempts Man from what would 
otherwise be an iron chain of antecedents and consequents, 
linked together by mere mechanical laws. Man, we are sure, 
may interpolate in this chain; he may commence a new 
series within and over-riding it. The non-Theist would (if 
consistent), describe such an act of will as a miracle. Never- 
theless, it is true to e very-day life, and each guilty person, 
justly condemned, is a living example of this truth. 

Any reader who has been deterred from admitting the argu- 
ments for Theism by the strength of objections apparently 
unanswerable, may feel, if he will thoughtfully reperuse this 
chapter, that many very formidable difficulties have melted 
away. He may also be inclined to admit that, if facts are to 



318 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



be considered the best grounds for reasoning with probability 
from the known to the unknown, the facts of nature, (including 
human nature,) make not against, but for, the conclusions of 
Natural Theology. And they do so all the more stringently, 
because they coincide with the higher and more spiritual 
tendencies of Man's being, — with the beliefs and aspirations 
of the most nobly endowed among his race. 

Many readers will go further than this. They will perceive 
in the constitution of our distinctive nature, and more par- 
ticularly in the movement of Volition, a really probable though 
far away similitude with the producing Cause of all things. 
At all events they wilJ say that no other similitude or illustra- 
tion has ever been conceived with so much probability. To 
such minds the argument would appear sufficiently convincing 
if shaped as a very wide application of the analogous reasoning 
stated in our Chapter on Design. The limitations there laid 
down should in this case be carefully observed ; above all as 
regards the pivot on which such an argument must turn. 

A larger class of readers may prefer to leave the field of 
this inviting analogy untouched ; and remain content with 
having noted its resources in passing. They will thus prefer 
to pursue the more direct line of thought already adopted, 
especially since it has the merit of avoiding even the most 
shadowy apparent assumption of the principle invidiously 
termed Anthropomorphism. We therefore continue to place 
Man's causative nature side by side with external Force, and 
to set the powers he exercises as an inventor, artist, and pro- 
ducer, over against those natural powers we see elicited and 
brought to light by his activities. This is the aspect of the 
world to which the Relativity between Power and Function 
most obviously conducts us. Surveyed from this aspect it 
becomes plain that Nature is not entirely a soulless mechan- 
ism ; — but that the Mind of Man finds something which corre- 
sponds to his human Thought, and which answers the touch 
of his idealizing impulse by implicitly obeying it. He is able, 
in this manner, to distinguish Nature's Mind from Nature's 
raw material. 

Most of us are so accustomed to look at the world ab extra, 
and place ourselves in antithetical opposition to it, that we 



PRODUCTION AND ITS LAW. 



319 



experience a kind of embarrassment in changing our point of 
view, and considering how much Nature and human nature 
correspond and harmonize together. There is something strange 
to many persons, in the thought that law is an idea put into 
operation ; (h) that, when we speak of the dynamic agencies 
and living forces of nature, the dynamism is derived from 
intelligence ; the life springs from mind. This is one of the 
puzzles and perplexities which hang a veil between God, who 
is pure Reason, and this outside world. No doubt there is 
much that appears dark and enigmatic in every attempted 
explanation of the subject. Yet it is clear that, whatever our 
conception of matter and mind may be, one of these two must 

(h) "The philosopher, not less than the poet, postpones the apparent 
order and relations of things to the empire of thought. £ The problem 
of philosophy,' according to Plato, 'is, for all that exists conditionally, 
to find a ground unconditioned and absolute.' It proceeds on the faith 
that a law determines all phenomena, which being known, the phenomena 
can be predicted. That law, when in the mind, is an idea. Its beauty 
is infinite. The true philosopher and the true poet are one, and a beauty, 
which is truth, and a truth, which is beauty, is the aim of both. Is not 
the charm of one of Plato's or Aristotle's definitions, strictly like that of 
the Antigone of Sophocles ? It is, in both cases, that a spiritual life has 
been imparted to nature ; that the solid seeming block of matter has been 
pervaded and dissolved by a thought ; that this feeble human being has 
penetrated the vast masses of nature with an informing soul, and recog- 
nized itself in their harmony, that is, seized their law. In physics, when 
this is attained, the memory disburthens itself of its cumbrous catalogues 
of particulars, and carries centuries of observation in a single formula." 
Emerson. Idealism. 

"He who studies the concrete and neglects the abstract cannot be 
called an interpreter of nature. Such was Bacon's judgment." Robert 
Leslie Ellis, in Bacon's Works, Vol. I. p. 26. 

" If a man's knowledge be confined to the efficient and material causes 
(which are unstable causes, and merely vehicles, or causes which convey 
the form in certain cases) he may arrive at new discoveries in reference 
to substances in some degree similar to one another, and selected before- 
hand ; but he does not touch the deeper boundaries of things. But 
whosoever is acquainted with Forms, embraces the unity of nature in 
substances the most unlike ; and is able therefore to detect and bring to 
light things never yet done, and such as neither the vicissitudes of nature, 
nor industry in experimenting, nor accident itself, would ever have 
brought into act, and which would never have occurred to the thought of 
man. From the discovery of Forms therefore results truth in speculation 
and freedom in operation." — Bacon. Novum Organon, Book II. Aph. III. 



320 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



be resolvably consequent upon the other; and the efforts of 
physicists have been strained for many years to diminish the 
distance between them. With these efforts, however, we have 
nothing to do beyond very distinctly adducing them (i) in 

(i) The problem awaiting the philosophic physicist runs as follows : — 
It remains to be seen how closely and with what degree of distinctness, 
science can approximate these impalpable forces governing the natural 
world, to the forces we are accustomed to call immaterial, because they 
become known to us by the activities of Thought and Will. 

This problem — the incorporeity of Matter, or a near approach to it— has 
been a favourite subject of speculation in all ages. The curious reader 
may track it from the pre- and post-Christian Greeks through Arabian 
and Jewish philosophies to the Schoolmen (who borrowed from Jews 
unknowingly) and so transmitted it down like an heirloom to our own 
later controversialists. The subject has been treated on Metaphysical 
grounds, for Religious interests, or as a weapon keen edged in demolish- 
ing antagonistic cosmologies. But it has not often been entertained for 
purely scientific reasons, and as one of those so-called "useless ques- 
tions " which always turn out most proline seminal principles, fertile in 
explaining nature and throwing out branches in numerous unforeseen 
directions. 

It was thus however and with no side views that the illustrious 
Faraday looked at this subject. With what effect may be best learned 
by putting together two separate accounts of his reasoning. 

In 1844, Dr. Bence Jones informs us Faraday (then in his 53rd year) 
indulged in " A speculation respecting that view of the nature of matter 
which considers its ultimate atoms as centres of force, and not as so 

many little bodies surrounded by forces The particle, indeed, 

is supposed to exist only by these forces, and where they are it is." 

This speculation did in fact give a tone to that memorable season — now 
thirty years ago. 

Dr. Tyndall says : — " On Friday, January 19, 1844, he opened the 
weekly evening meetings of the Royal Institution by a discourse entitled 
'A speculation touching Electric Conduction and the nature of Matter.' 
In this discourse he not only attempts the overthrow of Dalton's Theory 
of Atoms, but also the subversion of all ordinary scientific ideas regard- 
ing the nature and relations of Matter and Force. He objected to the 
use of the term atom : — £ I have not yet found a mind,' he says, 'that 
did habitually separate it from its accompanying temptations ; and there 
can be no doubt that the words definite proportions, equivalent, primes, 
etc., which did and do fully express all the facts of what is usually 
called the atomic theory in chemistry, were dismissed because they were 
not expressive enough, and did not say all that was in the mind of 
him who used the word atom in their stead.' " (Faraday as a Discoverer, 
pp. 119-20.) 

And again: — "With his usual courage and sincerity he pushes his 



PRODUCTION AND ITS LAW. 



321 



order to shew where this particular difficulty really lies, and 
that it is by no means a special question of Natural Theology. 

view to its utmost consequences. f This view of the constitution of 
matter,' he continues, ' would seem to involve necessarily the conclusion 
that matter fills all space, or at least all space to which gravitation 
extends ; for gravitation is a property of matter dependent on a certain 
force, and it is this force which constitutes the matter. In that view 
matter is not merely mutually penetrable ; but each atom extends, so to 
say, throughout the whole of the solar system, yet always retaining 
its own centre of force.'" Faraday "compares the interpenetration of 
two atoms to the coalescence of two distinct waves, which though for a 
moment blended to a single mass, preserve their individuality, and after- 
wards separate." (Ibid. pp. 123-4 and note.) 

The subject did not easily lose its hold on the philosopher's mind. 
"At the Institution," writes Dr. Bence Jones, "he gave eight lectures 
after Easter on the phenomena and philosophy of heat. He ended this 
course thus : — ' We know nothing about matter but its forces — nothing 
in the creation but the effect of these forces ; further our sensations and 
perceptions are not fitted to carry us ; all the rest, which we may con- 
ceive we know, is only imagination.' He gave two Friday discourses : 
the first on the nature of matter, the other on recent improvements in 
the silvering of mirrors. 

' ' His notes of the first lecture begin thus : — ' Speculations dangerous 
temptations ; generally avoid them ; but a time to speculate as well as to 
refrain, all depends upon the temper of the mind. I was led to consider 
the nature of space in relation to electric conduction, and so of matter, 
i.e. whether continuous or consisting of particles with intervening space, 
according to its supposed constitution. Consider this point, remarking 
the assumptions everywhere. 

" 4 Chemical considerations abundant, but almost all assumption. Easy 
to speak of atomic proportions, multiple proportions, isomeric and iso- 
morphic phenomena and compound bases ; and to account for effects we 
have only to hang on to assumed atoms the properties or arrangement of 
properties assumed to be sufficient for the purpose. But the funda- 
mental and main facts are expressed by the term definite proportion, — the 
rest, including the atomic notion, is assumption. 

" ' The view that physical chemistry necessarily takes of atoms is now 
very large and complicated ; first many elementary atoms — next com- 
pound and complicated atoms. System within system, like the starry 
heavens, may be right — but may be all wrong. Thus see how little of 
general theory of matter is known as fact, and how much is assumption. 

" 'Final brooding impression, that particles are only centres of force ; 
that the force or forces constitute the matter ; that therefore there is 
no space between the particles distinct from the particles of matter ; 
that they touch each other just as much in gases as in liquids or solids ; 
and that they are materially penetrable, probably even to their very 

21 



322 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



The point for us, is rather to see how much we can discern 
respecting the action of Mind in and upon Nature. To see, 
that is, how many facts the realities of Production teach us. 
And throughout the whole realm of Productiveness (com- 
mencing from the steam-engine and ending with human self- 
formation), there is a certain sameness of procedure and of 
principle transparently discernible. And this truth, fairly 
examined, yields more than one kind of argument for Theism. 
At the first blush of the subject, it is evident that the 

centres. That, for instance, water is not two particles of oxygen side by 
side, but two spheres of power mutually penetrated, and the centres even 
coinciding.'" Bence Jones — Life of Faraday, Vol. II., pp. 177-78. 

These views (best known as Boscovich's theory), though not generally 
held in scientific circles, are favoured by Bacon's most able com- 
mentator, Robert Leslie Ellis, and are pronounced by Professor 
Huxley a " tenable hypothesis." Mr. Spencer poises the balance 
as follows: — "Though the combining weights of the respective ele- 
ments are termed by chemists their ' equivalents,' for the purpose 
of avoiding a questionable assumption, we are unable to think of the 
combination of such definite weights, without supposing it to take place 
between definite numbers of definite particles. And thus it would 
appear that the Newtonian view is at any rate preferable to that of 
Boscovich. A disciple of Boscovich, however, may reply that his 
master's theory is involved in that of Newton ; and cannot indeed be 
escaped. 'What,' he may ask, 'is it that holds together the parts of 
these ultimate atoms?' 'A cohesive force,' his opponent must answer. 
' And what,' he may continue, ' is it that holds together the parts of any 
fragments, into which, by sufficient force, an ultimate atom might be 
broken?' Again the answer must be — a cohesive force. 'And what,' 
he may still ask, ' if the ultimate atom were, as we can imagine it to be, 
reduced to parts as small in proportion to it, as it is in proportion to a 
tangible mass of matter — what must give each part the ability to sustain 
itself, and to occupy space ? ' Still there is no answer but — a cohesive 
force. Carry the process in thought as far as we may, until the extension 
of the parts is less than can be imagined, we still cannot escape the 
admission of forces by which the extension is upheld ; and we can find no 
limit until we arrive at the conception of centres of force without any 
extension." First Principles, p. 54. 

It is evident that Faraday was able to think in a manner which has been 
often declared impossible. Mr. Spencer's statement of the counter case is 
alone sufficient to prove that the inquiry is sure to be recurrent. We 
may add with Dr. Tyndall that facts alone cannot satisfy the mind, and 
that when a law is established, the question " why " is inevitable. Com- 
pare foot-note p. 324 post. 



PRODUCTION AND ITS LAVA 



323 



scientific producer when he begins to move, starts from the 
Causal power of mind. He moves through ideas or impulses 
of which he is internally conscious, and which present to him 
a chosen aim to be realized, a goal to be attained. It is 
equally evident that, when his aim is to make or effect some- 
thing external to himself, he next proceeds to discover or 
accept one or more principles, existing for Mind alone* but 
operative in Nature. Such principles yield to his reason the 
requisite proportionate relation of Power employed, to Func- 
tion designed. Upon this intelligent perception of intelligible 
laws, he acts ; — it works well, and succeeds ; — and from this 
experience of working and success, he finds for his productive 
intelligence a daily and hourly verification. 

It is well to place this subject in various lights before 
reasoning upon it. We may illustrate the relativities or laws, 
through which Intelligence acts, by saying that they are to 
the fabric of the world, what the motory nervous system is to 
a highly-developed living organism. And, putting aside for 
a moment the intellectual agency of man, and applying our 
similitude to illustrate natural production alone, we may say 
that, just as the mandatory nerves imply some volitional, 
centre, so these intelligent laws presuppose a mind in Nature. 
And we may not only make this clearer, but also evidence it 
more certainly, by pointing to the fact that amidst Nature's 
almost infinite manifoldness, we see everywhere harmony, 

* A familiar instance of one among these abstract entities may convey 
to some readers a clearer idea of their nature than many careful ex- 
planations. Three balks of timber are lying in our road, — one, a very 
large and heavy monster, directly across it. Desirous of driving by, and 
being without adequate help to remove an obstacle beyond our strength, 
we call to mind the following definition. " The lever is an inflexible bar, 
capable of free motion about a fixed axis, called the fulcrum." (Newth.. 
Natural Philosophy, p. 33.) Acting upon this idea, we place one balk we 
can manage to move, upon a second which happens to lie conveniently, . 
and so roll away the third heavy monster. This done, we replace No. I 
peaceably beside No. 2, and wend on our way rejoicing. Now the lever, 
as defined by Newth, existed ideally in our mind, and we realised and 
used it. Our lever and fulcrum are still lying on the road, though they 
are lever and fulcrum no longer. The leverage was an applied mental 
Form, but we no longer want the Form to be operative, — and along 
with it the Force has disappeared. 



324 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



symmetry, order. Forces, like lines of light, traverse the 
world, illuminating, (so to speak), the moving scenes of its 
magnificent transparency. And the one electric lamp that 
sends forth those illuminating rays, typifies the Unity from 
which emanate all cosmical Forces, and which shines visibly 
through them &lh (J) 

(j) Our knowledge of Matter and of Motion ; — our knowledge of their 
continuance while our forms and other forms are undergoing change ; — 
all we most certainly know of the material world, resolves itself into our 
knowledge of Force. Thus far Mr. Herbert Spencer is with us, as may- 
be seen from the following paragraphs from his First Principles. " By 
the indestructibility of Matter, we really mean the indestructibility of the 
force with which Matter affects us. As we become conscious of Matter 
only through that resistance which it opposes to our muscular energy, so 
do we become conscious of the permanence of Matter only through the 
permanence of this resistance ; as either immediately or mediately proved 
to us. And this truth is made manifest not only by analysis of the a 
posteriori cognition, but equally so by analysis of the d priori one. For 
that which we cannot conceive to be diminished by the continued com- 
pression of Matter, is not its occupancy of space, but its ability to resist." 
(p. 179. ) "It remains to be pointed out that the continuity of Motion, 
as well as the indestructibility of Matter, is really known to us in terms 
of force. That a certain manifestation of force remains for ever undi- 
minished, is the ultimate content of the thought ; whether reached 
d posteriori or a priori." (p. 182.) And again (pp. 191-2). "What, in 
these two foregoing chapters, was proved true of Matter and Motion, 
is, a fortiori, true of the Force out of which our conceptions of Matter 
and Motion are built. Indeed, as we saw, that which is indestructible 
in matter and motion, is the force they present. And, as we here see, 
the truth that Force is indestructible, is the obverse of the truth that 
the Unknown Cause of the changes going on in consciousness is inde- 
structible. So that the persistence of consciousness, constitutes at once 
our immediate experience of the persistence of Force, and imposes on 

us the necessity we are under of asserting its persistence 

Consciousness without this or that particular form is possible; but con- 
sciousness without contents is impossible." 

We are also quite at one with Mr. Herbert Spencer as regards an asser- 
tion made in his Principles of Psychology (I. 161,) and repeated, to shew 
how anti-materialistic he is, in his last book. {Essays. III., p. 250.) "Of 
the two it seems easier to translate so-called Matter into so-called Spirit, 
than to translate so-called Spirit into so-called Matter, which latter is, 
indeed, wholly impossible." 

But though it is true, as he adds, that "no translation can carry us 
beyond our symbols," it is no less true that we are impelled to inquire 
into that which underlies them. Mr. Spencer says further {Psychology I. 



PRODUCTION AND ITS LAW. 



325 



There is nothing imaginative or metaphysical involved in 
this statement. It amounts to no more than what many very 
eminent physicists lay down, as implicitly contained in their 
sciences. On this very ground, Professor Baden Powell holds 
the validity of the argument from Design, as was mentioned in 
a former chapter. He puts the case into a few words thus 
" In the present state of knowledge, law and order, physical 
causation and uniformity of action, are the elevated manifesta- 
tions of Divinity, creation and providence." * A few passages 
further on, he repudiates with scorn the vulgar supposition 
that physical science can be confined to the circle of outward 
experience alone ; f it includes within itself the principle of 
directing intelligence. According to Comte himself, " un fait 
s'explique par un fait dun ordre superieur, dont la perfection 
est sa raison, dont Taction qu'elle renferme est sa cause." J 

It does indeed seem as impossible to deny the existence and 
operation of Mind in Nature, as it is to deny the existence and 
consciousness of our own minds. No tenable reason can ever 
be assigned why, when we look forth into the world surround- 

162,) " The conditioned form under which Being is presented in the 
Subject, cannot, any more than the conditioned form under which Being 
is presented in the Object, be the Unconditioned Being common to the 
two." In this negation we are less at one with him, for, as we firmly 
believe, in that conditioned sphere we call our own subjective nature there 
is a Reality presented to our consciousness by every act of Volition which 
brings us far nearer than any objective or outside form of existence can 
bring us to that Unconditioned Being which is common to the two, and 
infinitely superior to them both. 

* Spirit of Inductive Philosophy, p. 165. 

f Ibid. pp. 169-170. "In the confined and literal notions, often 
ignorantly entertained, of the sciences of observation, our conclusions 
might be supposed restricted to the field of mere sensible experience ; and 
in this sense we should fall short of any worthy apprehension of the 
Supreme Intelligence. But the truly inductive philosopher extends his 
contemplation to intellectual conceptions of a higher class, pointing to 
order and uniformity as constant and universal as the extent of nature 
itself in space and in time ; and in the same proportion he recognises 
harmony and arrangement invested with the attributes of universality 
and eternity, and thus derives his loftier ideas of the Divine perfections." 

X See Ravaisson (La Philosophic en France, p. 82,) for an account of 
Comte's position in this particular. He characterizes it thus : ' ' Du posi- 
tivisme physique superficiel il est arrive au positivisme moral." 



326 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



ing us, we should be able to ascertain the fact of corporeal 
existence by means of our bodily senses, and be, at the same 
time, unable to ascertain the fact of existing intelligence by 
means of our mental intuitions. Each kind of existence has 
its appropriate evidence, and both sorts of evidence claim our 
belief by appealing to the veracity of our human consciousness. 

If, therefore, it were possible to say with certitude " There is 
no God," the certainty would not, because it could not, elimi- 
nate Mind from the Universe. The law of production exists 
in, and for the Mind, — and so far as we can know, Mind in 
some shape or other works through the intelligible law. (k) 
Suppose we frame a crucial case for investigation. 

Without speculating upon the first origin of things natural 
— without taking into the inquiry any preconception of a 
Divine personality — let us inquire what the world of Nature 
as it now exists can teach any man respecting the kind, 
degree, or condition of Mind, which regulates and moulds it ? 
We are obliged to say " moulds it " ; — for Nature is not pre- 
sented to us as an inert mass. We see movement, change, 
and activity everywhere. And this fact makes a vast differ- 
ence to the present question. 

(k) Or else as some may prefer to state it, Mind is the intelligible law. 
In other words, Law is the manifestation and energizing of the Mind in 
Nature, and we recognize mind in the energy of Law. Canon Mozley 
spoke as follows in 1872. " There is a great deal said now about Mind 
in Nature, and scientific men talk enthusiastically about Mind ; the old. 
notion of chance is obsolete, and in spite of the strength of a materialist 
school, there is a tendency to a consensus of scientific men that there is 
Mind in the universe. Would any one in any public meeting of scientific 
men dare to stand up and deny that there was Mind in Nature 1 It would 
be thought monstrous. It would be set down as the revival of an old 
stupidity. It is the only form in which they find they can speak of nature 
which at all ennobles it or which satisfies their own idea of the sublimity 
of nature." The Principle of Causation considered in opposition to Atheistic 
Theories, p. 41. 

The learned writer goes on to connect this admitted idea of Mind with 
the collateral idea of Design. And this is a most natural sequence of 
thought. But, for reasons already mentioned, the main argument of this 
chapter pursues another track. Mind in Nature being directly intuited, 
(to use an expressive Kantian phrase) we supplement the evidence thus 
given by a cross-examination of facts for the purpose of eliciting an 
account of what manner of Intelligence this Mind in Nature must be. 



PRODUCTION AND ITS LAW. 



327 



Let us, then, suppose the inquirer setting out from an attempt 
to conceive mind as immersed in matter ; either being identical 
with it, (I) or pervading it, like a subtle fluid, or imponderable 
force. Let some such conception be supposed his starting 
point. What sort of a Power must he finally determine this 
mind to be ? 

Could he possibly commence with a mundane intelligence 
inferior to the mind of Man ? — The bee can build a cell, the 
beaver a dam — but the bee cannot construct a dam, nor the 
beaver a cell. The same is true universally. Animal intelli- 
gence acts in single right lines. We should, therefore, be 
obliged to conceive as many minds immanent in nature, or as 
many modifications of mind, as there are varieties of produc- 
tion. And if this were true, what would become of the order 
and harmony of the Universe ? We call it by that name, 
because we know that, (notwithstanding its marvellous diver- 
sity and manifoldness,) it forms a grand united whole. It 

(I) "It is true," says Canon Mozley, "that matter has lately been set 
before us as claiming more vicinity to mind than it has been usual to 
assign it ; and a scientific man, of the highest genius, has regretted that 
' mind and matter have ever been presented to us in the rudest contrast 
— the one as all noble, the other as all vile.' .... Hobbes, in the 17th 
century, anticipated this claim, and laid down ' that all matter as matter 
is endued not only with figure and a capacity of motion, but also with an 
actual sense and perception, and wants only the organs and memory of 
animals to express its sensations.' " On Causation, as before, p. 38. 

The doctrine of an inferior and irrational, or as some.phrase it " a blind 
intelligence " is the topic next discussed with some fulness in our text. 

This "blind intelligence" makes Nature, so to speak, "the instinct of 
the Universe." Thence it is " no long step " to a belief that the world is 
a living creature, neither are there wanting modern accounts of the 
principle of Vitality, and its powers of assimilation, — equally applicable 
to the accretive growth of a crystal. 

The renovators of philosophy were (as Mr. Leslie Ellis remarks) strongly 
inclined to this belief, its typical teacher being Campanella. Leibniz 
points out with his usual energy its affinity with the Scholastic doctrine 
of " substantial forms " — (a very different theory from Bacon's) " formas 
quasdam substantiales ejusmodi sibi imaginatus videtur, quae per se sint 
causa motus in corporibus, quemadmodum Scholastici capiunt ; " and pro- 
ceeds to say, "ita reditur ad tot deunculos, quot formas substantiales, et 

Gentilem prope polytheismum Quum tamen revera in natura nulla 

sit sapientia, nullus appetitus, ordo vero pulcher ex eo oriatur, quia est 
horologium Dei." Leibnitii Opera Philosophica, Ed. Erdmann, pp. 52-3. 



328 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



would become necessary, next, to admit a governing intelli- 
gence, able to control the countless species of intelligent power 
employed in producing all sorts of effects. And it really seems 
easier, at once to conceive a supreme Mind, framing its ideas 
into intelligible laws, and launching the forces of the Universe 
in moving might along them. 

There are many obvious reasons why, after all, this would 
be the easiest * and therefore the preferable, conception. One 
lies in the immeasurable width and extent of that relativity 
between power and function, which we have seen to underlie 
every known production, — and conceivable possibility of ruling 
or moulding Nature. Now, under power we class forces such 
as those which hold corpuscles in cohesion, balance the orbs of 
heaven, or control the growth of a crystal. Such as those, 
again, which make Life the counterbalance of dissolution and 
decay; and enable the animal frame to resist decomposing 
influences ; to feed, to grow, to energize, and move freely on 
earth, in water, or in air. Such as those, finally, which yield 
us the pabulum of sensation, thought, emotion ; and subserve 
our efforts to attain whatever is highest or noblest in our 
human world. 

We know what sorts of intelligence are required to apprehend, 
and to do no more than apprehend, the rationale of many 
among these natural movements, forces, and processes. Some 
of them can be explained only by a very great mathematician, 
other some by an equally great chemist, biologist, or psycholo- 
gist. And in some, Man of the 19th century is as much a 
tyro and disciple,— as ignorant and as tentative — as his fore- 
fathers were two thousand years ago. What a complexity of 
Minds, or what a majestic supremacy of one Mind becomes 
thus discernible by the eye of Reason ! Of Reason we say, 
meaning thereby the reason of a human being who looks facts 
in the face, puts them together and draws the inevitable con- 
clusion. Were this drawn, it would amount to something 
very like a re-affirmation of Theism. At present, however, 

* " Easiest " is here and elsewhere used to mean that which accounts 
in the most natural and perfect manner alike for a single fact and for the 
complex whole of facts presented to us. Such an " easiest account " is 
the law of Gravitation — it is at once the simplest and the most complete. 



PRODUCTION AND ITS LAW. 



329 



we will not press these topics further; since our object is to 
put an opposite conception on its complete trial, so as to see 
what is eventually implied in it. 

Suppose, for instance, a merely sensitive intelligence to 
represent the character of mind administering the Universe. 
Conceive, if you choose, the world to be like an animal as 
some old philosophies conceived it. The way in which a 
human being sees Power and Function is altogether different 
from the way in which they would be viewed by the supposed 
mundane intelligence. We do not see them as two entities 
separately existing, and the relation which is of such vital 
consequence to all inventors and producers, as something which 
ensues between them. To us, the causal essence of the Power 
lies in the relativity itself, and we often actually recognize 
the Power passing over into its Function, and becoming lost 
in it. An example in point, lies in the active combination of 
uncombined atoms and molecules ; — the relativity (or, as in 
such a case it is termed, the attraction) is the immediate 
cause of the production. "Thus" says Dr. Tyndall* "we can 
get power out of oxygen and hydrogen by the act of their 
union, but once they are combined, and once the motion con- 
sequent on their combination has been expended, no further 
power can be got out of the mutual attraction of oxygen and 
hydrogen. As dynamic agents they are dead." We can, in 
this manner, produce from the combustion of coal, light, heat, 
and propulsive force; but coal and oxygen are consumed in 
the producing process. Yet in this process, what and how 
much would have come within the grasp of a merely sensitive 
intelligence ? Simply the object coal, — the brilliant light, — 
the pleasant heat, — and the actual movement of an incompre- 
hensible machine. Let Mundane Mind be thus conceived and 
Nature would necessarily be administered by an intelligence 
which never got below the surface. The result, as we may 
certainly perceive, must have always lain between either an 
unchanging sameness, or the instability of chance misdirection. 
A state of things which compared with our actual world would 
seem most unsatisfactory ; but which never has in fact been 
realized, for a reason at once apparent to the reader's sagacity. 
* Fragments of Science, p . 88. 



330 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



Take another instance of change. The chemical elements 
of a Galvanic battery disappear in performing their function 
of causing a current, and the current may in turn disappear 
in the decomposition of water. But what merely sensitive 
intelligence could discern the invisible agency, — or measure 
the conversion of force, where nothing is visible except loss ? 
Besides, in this latter example do we not see how truly cor- 
relative these two terms Power and Function are ? We may 
intelligently think and speak of the chemical constituents of 
the battery, as conjoint Power ; — and of their accomplishing 
their Function in the Current. But we may also speak of 
the current as a Power, accomplishing its Function by evolving 
from water two elementary gases. In other words, the ideas 
of Power and Function, definite enough to the eye of reason, 
are in all other respects, fluent. They are neither things, nor 
phenomenal attributes of things. They are power and function 
by virtue of a relation existing between them, and this relation 
is a fact not of the bare impressible sense, but of our purely 
reasoning intellect. 

The same consequence appears, (in a shape which to some 
minds may be easier,) from viewing in another light the very 
same example of a galvanic battery, applied to decompose 
water. At each end of the chain there are palpable materials, 
visible to corporeal sense. But, between them runs the true 
force ; — and this is absolutely impalpable. We theorize upon 
this force, but, whatever our theories may be, we accept its 
reality as a fact clear to our human mind. And we also 
clearly see that no lower mind could possibly apprehend it. 

And here arises a curious question well worth a brief con- 
sideration. It is this : — To any kind of mind, the faculties of 
which are bound up in sense, what would appear to be the 
realities, and what the unrealities of the Universe ? Galvanic 
wires or chains are perceptible to our bodily senses, but the 
traversing force is imperceptible. Hence, in our common 
speech, we are easily led to talk of the polar elements or 
objects (whatever they are) as realities jpar excellence; — but 
without in the least meaning to imply that the nexus or rela- 
tivity between them is any less real ; or less a fact. What we 
do mean, is, that this reality is a fact to another, and a finer, 



PRODUCTION AND ITS LAW. 



331 



faculty. But what would it be if the finer faculty were 
wanting ? — Reality would in that case become phenomenal ; 
— and phenomena (according to Dr. Whewell and other in- 
ductive philosophers), would at the same time cease to be 
facts. 

So far, therefore, as we know, — and we still limit this dis- 
cussion to what we really do know, — were Reason wanting, 
all the nobler part of the Universe — its highest realities, — 
as understood by us, could not be held real. They would 
fade like an insubstantial pageant — or the baseless fabric of 
a dream. For, be it repeated, — we do not see as a merely 
sensitive mind must see. Principles and laws, sustaining and 
administering the universal mechanism, are the visible realities 
of intellect ; and are visible to intellect alone. Thus, no one 
ever saw the principle of the arch except by an act of intel- 
lectual sight, and yet in the strength of it all arches stand 
firm. So, too, an architect knows that the stability and 
beauty of his structure depend on much that is hidden from 
the uninstructed human eye. What meaner eye, then, could 
ever succeed in piercing the secret architecture of the Universe ? 
To the mundane mind, if less than human, the most real would 
become unreal, — and the shadow appear to be the substance. 
No supposition can possibly seem more absurd ! Yet, when 
people speak of a "blind intelligence" in Nature, they must 
mean something less than Reason by that strange contradictory 
appellation. 

The case for Unreason can never be improved by saying 
that ' The world, as it exists, is a system of accordant forces ; 
tending to fulfil their functions through a kind of self-evolving 
movement, excited and controlled by correlation and corre- 
spondence, action and interaction. The products prevail, where 
they do prevail, through the completeness of their harmony 
with their surroundings. By virtue of this acquired excellence 
which becomes intrinsic, each finally developes itself into a 
permanent and integrated unit.' Here, obviously, the question 
of Intelligence recurs. If Mind were a necessary postulate 
before, how much more stringent the necessity now ! From 
hosts of uncounted relativities we infer an Absolute ; — sur- 
veying their rhythmical stir and onward strivings what shall 



332 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



we predicate respecting it ? The world might have been a 
discord; — Whence came its first symphonious movement? — 
its after- waves of sphere-music majestically sweet to under- 
standing ears ; — its deeper and still deeper accordances ; — 

" The Diapason ending full in Man," 

that is to say, thus ending so far as the solemn march has 
been played out ! What shall be hereafter, we know not now. 
But most marvellous of all as yet, is that first chord which 
struck the key-note of the whole harmonious performance* 

It is evident that the answers to these inquiries, must have 
the effect of infinitely elevating our own idea of the intelligence 
discoverable in natural productions; — because they will add 
to our perception of its wonderful insight, a still more won- 
derful impression of foresight, — a foresight extending over 
illimitable periods of time ; and causing effects, for the calcu- 
lation of which no power of intellect actually known to us, 
would have any adequate sufficiency. 

The only apparent evasion of this consequence, is to deny 
arrangement altogether. But, then, how great are the resulting 
difficulties ! In the first place, it would seem at once to restore 
covertly, if not openly, that very ancient Divine principle, 
Chance; whose banishment has ]ong been agreed upon by 
reflective men. In the next place, it is not clear how, looking 
at the scientific doctrine of Chances, (m) they would, when 
calculated, yield any probability whatever of production ; — or 
even (what appears a less thing), of development from a rudi- 
mentary or less perfect structure already existing. The con- 
sequence is, that one or more principles besides Chance must 
soon be postulated, and "blind laws" are held insufficient 
because not unlikely to become guilty of incidental misdirec- 
tion. This need of auxiliary postulates has determined some 
very staunch advocates of Evolution to maintain that the circle 

* Struck it so truly that (to borrow Mr. Huxley's expression) a suffi- 
cient Intelligence might have predicted the Universe. But what an 
infinitude of knowledge would this " sufficiency " seem to presuppose ! 

(m) Taking an optical structure of the Eye as a test example, the 
chances of its Evolution per accidens have been calculated by an eminent 
mathematician. His results may be seen in the Additional Note appended 
to this Chapter. They are extracted from the Hulsean Lectures for 1867. 



PRODUCTION AND ITS LAW. 



333 



of evolving laws or forces must certainly be ruled by some In- 
telligence, either inherent and immanent (mind and movement 
identical), — or else separate, transcendental, and probably per- 
sonal, superintending and superior to them all. (ri) 

Indeed the affirmation of Mind in Nature as a positively 
perceived Fact appears to be the sure direction of our human 
understanding, if allowed to observe and judge in a common- 
sense way. And the reason of the thing is obvious. When- 
ever we perceive anything by bodily vision and touch, or 
other material instruments, we unhesitatingly attribute to it a 
material existence. We derive our impression from a material 
antecedent, and say here is a corporeal substance, — in a word, 
— body. So, on the other hand, whenever material instru- 
ments are dispensed with, (because inadequate and unsuitable), 
and when Mind alone is used as our medium of perception, 
we are quite sure that what we perceive is not Body but Mind. 
In this manner, we know what to say of arrangement, counter- 
balance, superior excellence, (which means superior fitness), 

(n) For example : — No one holds the doctrine of Natural Selection 
more firmly than Mr. Wallace ; — he is, in fact, known to have antici- 
pated the Darwinian theory of Evolution. But he also holds that Natural 
Selection cannot account for certain of the physical peculiarities of Man ; 
much less for his consciousness, his language, his moral sense, or his 
Volition. 

Mr. Wallace maintains likewise that 

(1) Atoms are centres of Force. 

(2) Force is known to us as Will. 

(3) The Will that governs the world is the Will of higher intelli- 
gences or of one supreme Intelligence. 

He quotes, as representing his own thought, the following lines from an 
American poetess : — 

" God of the Granite and the Rose ! 

Soul of the Sparrow and the Bee ! 
The mighty tide of Being flows 

Through countless channels, Lord, from thee. 
It leaps to life in grass and flowers, 

Through every grade of being runs, 
While from Creation's radiant towers 

Its glory flames in Stars and Suns." 

To the above-mentioned points Mr. Wallace adds a spiritualistic belief 
in many sublime intelligences intermediate between the Deity and the 
Universe. Compare Natural Selection, Ed. 2. Essay X. with Notes. 



334 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



tendency to a function, (that is fitness in movement), or of a 
system of relation and correlation transcending the highest 
flight of human imagination. We say at once, here is Mind. 
We do not think it necessary to employ a periphrasis, and 
reason on the properties of intelligence, any more than we 
should, when receiving information from our senses, commence 
a syllogism on the properties of Matter. We simply say in 
the two several cases, — here is body, — here is mind. And, as 
regards both propositions, we are in all likelihood equally 
safe in saying so. 

The real question, therefore, remains just as we before stated 
it. We then derived our statement from the process of pro- 
duction, — first by analyzing it, and next, by shewing that the 
analysis was verified in experience. We have since run some 
risk of repetition, in order to look at the whole subject of Mind 
in Nature from various points of view. The effect has been to 
confirm for us, the issue above raised as being the right and 
true question. We must not ask, " Is there Mind in the 
natural world ? " but " What kind and degree of Intelligence 
do we, from our observation of facts, attribute to the Mind 
evidenced in the Universe ? " 

It is in answering this question that the fitnesses of or- 
ganized structures yield so many important considerations. We 
are not however obliged to follow the chain of the Design 
argument, liken these structures to objects of human art, and 
say, here is Design implying a Designer. We may quite as 
easily look at them in the light of the great productive Law 
we have been investigating. Fitness consists in the nicety of 
the manner in which Function is correlated with Power. 
Throughout the realm of organisms, vegetable and animal, 
the most beautiful examples of such correlation meet us at 
every turn, (o) When therefore we put our query, what 
character may here be ascribed to the Mundane Intelligence, 

(o) That the perception of fitness, even when of the most exalted 
kind, does not to some thinkers carry with it a perception of Design, is 
plainly manifest from the ensuing paragraph : — 

" The absurdity of the a posteriori argument for a God consists in the 
assumption that what we call order, harmony, and adaptation are evi- 
dence of design, when it is evident that, whether there be a God or not, 
order, harmony, and adaptation must have existed from eternity, and are not 



PRODUCTION AND ITS LAW. 



335 



the reply cannot seem doubtful. Instances of pre-eminent 
Fitness (such as those adduced further on) need not be under- 
stood in any other sense than this, in order to accomplish the 
purpose for which they are described. Neither need such 
words as adaptation or design, used for brevity's sake, be taken 
as references to the analogical argument discussed in our 
second Chapter. Mr. Darwin himself has frequently employed 
the expressions " contrivance," " purpose," etc., without intend- 
ing any such reference, — nay, rather with the full intention 
of arguing for a different account of the " contrivances "he 
specifies. 

From such wonderful examples of Fitness, many minds will 
choose at once to read the broad lesson of Teleology. Be it 
observed then that if this is done, the larger the generality 
under which the principle of Design is conceived, the better 
for its force in reasoning. As an argument, the idea has 
suffered from the imagination of readers dwelling upon the 
specialities recounted in many valuable books to the exclusion 
of wider and more universal conceptions. There is a vast 
difference, (p) between the assertion of a grand Unity, (in 

therefore necessary proof of a designing cause." (American Index, Jan. 
11, 1873.) 

It is to be hoped that the writer of this rather strong statement had 
insight enough to perceive that these eternal harmonizers of the whole 
Universe do, in fact, constitute a self-existent Mind. 

(p) With perfect fairness, Professor Huxley admits the force of this 
distinction. In a paragraph quoted p. 133, he wrote thus: — "It is 
necessary to remember that there is a wider Teleology, which is not 
touched by the doctrine of Evolution, but is actually based upon the 
fundamental proposition of Evolution. That proposition is, that the 
whole world, living and not living, is the result of the mutual interaction, 
according to definite laws, of the forces possessed by the molecules of which 
the primitive nebulosity of the universe was composed. If this be true, 
it is no less certain that the existing world lay, potentially, in the cosmic 
vapour ; and that a sufficient intelligence could, from a knowledge of the 
properties of the molecules of that vapour, have predicted, say the state 
of the Fauna of Britain in 1869, with as much certainty as one can say 
what will happen to the vapour of the breath in a cold winter's day." 

It is curious to compare Mr. Huxley's dictum on the Eye (cited p. 133) 
with a passage before part-quoted from Mr. Newman. "In saying that 
lungs were intended to breathe, and eyes to see, we imply an argument 
rom Fitness to Design, which carries conviction to the overwhelming 



I 



336 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 

subservience to which all other things have their several deter- 
minate purposes,) and the being able to say in each smaller 
instance, here is the design or intended relation between this 

majority of cultivated as well as uncultivated minds. Yet, in calling it 
an argument, we may seem to appeal to the logical faculty ; and this 
would be an error. No syllogism is pretended, that proves a lung to 
have been made to breathe ; but we see it by what some call Common- 
Sense, and some Intuition. If such a fact stood alone in the universe, 
and no other existences spoke of Design, it would probably remain a 
mere enigma to us; but when the whole human world is pervaded by 
similar instances, not to see a Universal Mind in nature appears almost 
a brutal insensibility ; and if any one intelligently professes Atheism, 
the more acute he is, the more distinctly we perceive that he is deficient 
in the Religious Faculty. Just as, if he had no sense of Beauty in any- 
thing, we should not imagine that we could impart it by argument, so 

neither here No stress whatever needs here to be laid upon 

minute anatomy, as, for instance, of the eye : it signifies not, whether 
we do or do not understand its optical structure as a matter of science. 
If it had no optical structure at all, if it differed in no respect (that we 
could discover) from a piece of marble, except that it sees, this would not 
impair the reasons for believing that it is meant to see." The Soul, 
pp. 32-3. 

This extract from Mr. Newman raises the question — Is an eminent Bio- 
logist any better judge on the subject of Design, than any other eminent 
thinker 1 Clearly he is a judge of Fitness, but that fact is admitted on all 
sides ; — the eyes of animals are practically fit for seeing with, and, what is 
more, they are fitted to the special fields of vision useful to their several 
owners. The first question is, Does the fact of seeing or the fitness to 
see raise a moral certainty or very strong probability of Design ? And 
should a Biologist rejoin that there exists another account of organic 
facts and fitnesses probable and adequate ; next comes the further 
inquiry, which is the most probable, the most adequate, in a word the 
easiest 1 In this connection it must likewise be asked with some urgency, 
what non-Biological reasons there are for preferring Design? Whether 
for instance any good reasons may be found for believing that there is 
somewhere subsisting in and over the Natural world an Intelligence of 
such order as to be capable of arranging fitness with a view to the 
harmony and general co-operation of natural Forces ? 

The attempt has been made to shew cause on this side in the present 
Chapter. Of course, the case for Design must be rendered unanswerable 
if a certitude of Reason, either speculative or practical, or a very strong 
conclusion of moral argument, or a probability outweighing all other 
probabilities, shall in any way be shewn for accepting the still nobler 
belief in a self-existent Will and Personality. Now this latter idea is 
the subject of our two closing Chapters, and is contemplated on grounds 



PRODUCTION AND ITS LAW. 



33T 



individual structure or condition, and this sole and definite 
finality. A good specimen of the difficulty thus occasioned, 
is an objection of Littre"s against the idea of Divinely bene- 
ficent adaptation. Why, he asks, should the bite of a mad 
dog have been allowed to produce hydrophobia ? Why, that is, 
should the dog's saliva have been so contrived, as to convey so 
virulent a blood poison ? The true answer, of course, must be 
that this effect is but one operation of a much more extensive 
physiological law ; — a law producing results, often of the most 
beneficial character. We must also, (as the same writer 
allows), draw a strong distinction between every law, and 
what is technically termed its "functioning."* Littre' views 
Nature as a moving panorama of antecedents and conse- 

with which the Biologist or Physicist, qua Biologist or Physicist has no 
very special concern. 

It seems plain, however, that when a great Biologist is preeminently 
a philosophic thinker (as an author like Mr. Huxley must be acknow- 
ledged by competent judges) — then he possesses a strong vantage ground, 
and vast opportunities either for good or for evil. And these last six 
words remind us to add with Mr. Newman that after all subjective con- 
ditions must not be forgotten. 

Would not a man without sense of the Beautiful be "colour-blind" to 
many among the harmonies of Nature ? And is there not something in 
the "Religious insight" Mr. Newman speaks of which seems nothing less 
than a gift of vision and faculty divine ? Man thus endowed may be in 
the highest sense Nature's interpreter, when he sees in her moving 
mirror the reflected lineaments of his own and Nature's God. To such 
a mind no idea can be more sublimely magnificent than the philosophic 
Teleology which Mr. Huxley bases on Evolution ; it seems to compress 
into one the Past, the Present, and the Future ; and to follow with 
winged thought that glance of an omniscient Creator which tongues of 
men and angels must for ever fail to describe. 

We ought to add that the principle of Evolution has been defined in 
more than one way. Some definitions would exclude the wide Teleologic 
view. What is here meant might (to borrow Mr. Spencer's remark) be 
more justly characterized as " Involution." 

* Comparing the life of Humanity with the life of an individual, and 
arguing for an all-pervading optimism as the general Law in both, Littre 
observes, "Pas plus dans un cas que dans 1 'autre, ne sont eliminees 
les maladies, les perturbations, les derangements, enun mot, tous les accidents 
qui intermennent dans le fonctionnement de chaque loi, et qui sont d'autant 
plus frequents et plus graves que la loi dont il s'agit gouverne des rapports 
plus compliques et plus eleve's." Paroles de Philosophic Positive, p. 20. 
The italics are our own. 

22 



338 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



quents ; — but he is obliged to confess that the nexus is not 
invariable. There are, indeed, variations, for which he 
employs this same " functioning," as a kind of apology. The 
necessity of such an apology is in itself a remarkable fact; 
since it shews how little rigorous is the common argument 
used by many physicists against the probability of Miracles. 
The necessity of natural sequence is, after all, no adamantine 
fatality ; and therefore Testimony to an event contrary to our 
experience and expectation, may have a most decisive value * 

We have already shewn that to see a law in Nature, is to 
see an actual instance of wide intelligence. Now, so seen, it is 
known as existing in rerum naturd — active — energizing — 
productive. But, suppose we for a moment conceive the 
intelligible law, as existing only in the intelligence itself, — 
a thought prior to its realization. The law is then what 
writers on natural history often call a type ; — or, as it is 
termed in the older philosophical language, an idea. The 
readers of S. T. Coleridge will not easily forget his chapter 
reconciling the Platonic and Baconian (q) methods of Philo- 

* It is a curious problem to put testimony in the scale against alleged 
necessities, regarding the course of Nature. A certain Eastern prince 
had never seen ice — and obstinately rejected the idea of its possible 
existence. Was he wise or unwise in his disbelief ? Wise, if we make 
the rule of actual experience our canon ; — unwise if we admit the rule 
of modification by unseen possibilities ; and still more, if we allow that a 
small amount of affirmative testimony ought in reason to outweigh a large 
amount of negative presupposition, or difficulty. A curious instance of 
this last rule is the natural history of the duck-billed platypus (the 
ornithorynchus), rightly called "paradoxus." The contradictory appear- 
ance of its organs created a world of scepticism, when its history was 
first reported to Naturalists. It was a question of improbability versus 
testimony ; — and, to use the established phrase, "every school boy " now 
knows that Testimony was right. Compare Note (c) p. 264, ante. 

(q) How Bacon can have been pictured by his admirers as neither ideal, 
nor metaphysical, seems to be one of those unintelligible mysteries of 
idolatry which idol- worshippers cannot themselves explain. How impos- 
sible it is on such a supposition to reconcile Bacon with himself will 
appear evident to any informed reader of Mr. Ellis's Preface to the 
Philosophical Works. 

Bacon's tribute to Plato was just, as well as discriminating^ and to our 
purpose is most appropriate. He says (De Augmentis, III. 4) ' ' For Meta- 
physic, I have already assigned to it the inquiry of Formal and Final 



PRODUCTION AND ITS LAW. 



339 



sophy. It turns, in great part, upon the essential identity 
of idea with latv. (Friend, Vol. III. Essay ix.) 

If, therefore, we perceive in anything creative, or any system 
whatsoever, a harmony of power with function, we call it 
fitness, or even adaptation when describing the actual matter 
of our own observations. But, if we speak of the same har- 
mony as an act of mind, we call it intelligent adaptation. 

Causes ; which assignation, as far as it relates to Forms, may seem 
nugatory ; because of a received and inveterate opinion that the Essential 
Forms or true differences of things cannot by any human diligence be 
found out ; an opinion which in the meantime implies and admits that 
the invention of Forms is of all parts of knowledge the worthiest to be 
sought, if it be possible to be found. And as for the possibility of finding 
it, they are ill discoverers who think there is no land where they can see 
nothing but sea. But it is manifest that Plato, a man of sublime wit 
(and one that surveyed all things as from a lofty cliff), did in his doctrine 
concerning Ideas descry that Forms were the true object of knowledge ; 
howsoever he lost the fruit of this most true opinion by considering and 
trying to apprehend Forms as absolutely abstracted from matter." This 
last path we have endeavoured to avoid ; and have ourselves elected to 
follow the Baconian precept, and to treat the Law or Form of Production 
not logically, but as seen in operation, and existent in rerum naturd ; not 
in or dine ad liominem but in or dine ad Universum. 

What Bacon himself expected from the investigation, he states plainly 
enough in continuation. "If we fix our eyes diligently seriously and 
sincerely upon action and use, it will not be difficult to discern and 
understand what those Forms are the knowledge whereof may wonder- 
fully enrich and benefit the condition of men. . » . . This part of 
Metaphysic I find deficient ; whereat I marvel not, because I hold it not 
possible that the Forms of things can be invented by that course of 
invention hitherto used ; the root of the evil, as of all others, being this : 
that men have used to sever and withdraw their thoughts too soon and 
too far from experience and particulars, and have given themselves 
wholly up to their own meditation and arguments. 

"But the use of this part of Metaphysic, which I reckon amongst the 
deficient, is of the rest the most excellent in two respects ; the one, 
because it is the duty and virtue of all knowledge to abridge the circuits 
and long ways of experience (as much as truth will permit), and to 
remedy the ancient complaint that 'life is short and art is long.' .... 
For God is holy in the multitude of his works, holy in the order or 
connexion of them, and holy in the union of them. And therefore the 
speculation was excellent in Parmenides and Plato (although in them it 
was but a bare speculation), ' that all things by a certain scale ascend 
to unity.' " (Ibid. Ellis and Spedding. IV. 3C0-362.) 



340 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



And, this at least, is what careful writers on Natural Theology 
mean by the word Design. Yet, certain careless objectors have 
misconceived the plain meaning, so far as to assert that if we 
would speak of any production as designed, it must first be 
proved not only intentional but arbitrary. This misconception 
— (the very opposite of our meaning) — seems to turn upon the 
mixture of two distinct notions, — the design of reason and the 
determination of caprice. If Natural Theologians wished to 
prove that the Designer of the Universe was always doing 
wrong, — and was always right because he did wrong, — it would 
be necessary to argue that design and caprice are one and the 
same thing, But Natural Theology endeavours to shew the 
exact contradictory. Its idea is, above all things, the Idea of 
a Sovereign Reason manifest in universal Law. 

The rejoinder has been made that at all events a Will is 
implied in Design ; — and that he who wills acts arbitrarily. 
Of course, there is a certain sense in which this may be true. 
A Sovereign will could at pleasure refuse the Right and choose 
the Wrong, but then it would cease to be a Sovereign Reason. 
That is, it would cease to be Sovereign at all, in any true Theo- 
logy. And we may, likewise, add that the ordinary instances 
and illustrations of Design never aim at proving Will directly ; 
— their immediate object is to shew Intelligence, foreseeing 
ends or functions, and purposing their attainment. It is clear 
that Will must indirectly be implied in such an argument. 
But, then, it is so implied, partly because all Reason is per se 
identical with Will, and partly because (as we shall endeavour 
to shew), Causation necessarily emanates from Will. The 
reader must, however, assign each conclusion to its proper 
argument, and keep each argument to its proper conclusion ; — 
a rule which those who dispute for victory, and not for truth, 
frequently fail to observe. 

The use we are now making of fitness and adaptation is less 
to prove the existence of Mind in the Universe, than its gran- 
deur, grasp, and comprehensiveness. For this purpose our 
clearest evidence arises from the coincidence of several diverse 
conditions, tending to one sovereign finality of function. And 
indeed, this argument from coincidence, is generally the most 
convincing ; — the greater the convergence of separate conditions, 



PRODUCTION AND ITS LAW. 



341 



— the stronger is our assurance that Mind determined the 
result, (r) Our sense of sight has always been a favourite 
subject in Natural Theology. It is familiar, and, so far as a 
broad outline of the function is concerned, may be easily 
studied by any common-sense person. It is, also, evidently 
one Function ; yet, even cursory observation shews a great 
diversity of powers contributing to produce it. How diverse 
they are, may be perceived by supposing first one and then 
another element of eyesight to be absent, and considering what 
the effect of each deficiency must be. 

Suppose, there were no light. The eye then, however beau- 
tiful and perfect in structure, would not be a means serving 
any purpose of perception. It is clear thus that the eye is an 
optical instrument. 

Suppose, again, light and optical arrangement both in ex- 
istence, but, also, that the eye had no power of adjusting 
itself to the direction of objects and other circumstances ; 
evidently its function of vision would be very much restricted. 

In relation to this end, the eye is a mechanical * instrument. 

We might, further, suppose the optical apparatus to work 
well, its adjustment also to be perfect, — and the picture on the 
retina no less so. But, with this perfect picture, suppose all 
ended. The function of eyesight would be as irretrievably 
gone as in our first case. 

This shews us that the eye does not really see. It is the 
servant of an impressible Power, — and this impressible power 
uses it, and sees through it. 

(r) The Hulsean Lecturer before alluded to states this point with most 
distinct emphasis. Speaking of the Eye as an optical instrument, he says, 
' ' Here are four conditions of things each utterly independent of the others, 
viz. the nerve, then its non-reflecting coating, then a transparent medium 
investing it, then a most remarkable ether surrounding the whole, the 
concurrence of all four being essential to the production of vision, never- 
theless we are to believe that all these adjustments and adaptations are 
accidentally made, retained and handed down by inheritance. If there be 
not evidence here of the selecting, arranging, controlling power of mind, 
will, forethought, contrivance, then I feel that I have no evidence for the 
existence of the indi viduality of my own being." Analogies, etc., p. 124. 

* There is perhaps no familiar tribe in which the wonders of this 
mechanical arrangement, can be more easily studied than in the venerable 
family of owls. 



342 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



Suppose, finally, that the picture on the retina set vibratory 
nerves in movement — each microscopic stroke producing its 
effect of vibration. Let something be seen by the impressible 
Power, but not apprehended as an object of common perception. 
Let there be no comparison with other sensations ; no tran- 
script into sense-language, of what is at once seen, touched, 
heard, smelled, or tasted. Consider, how barren and unpro- 
ductive the result ! Eyesight is reduced to a play of coloured 
images. There can be no malleable material for Intelligence 
to work up. Nothing to be cast into any universal mould ; — 
no possibility of a greedy Mind feeding eagerly through the 
quick perceiving eye. 

In the absence of information given, or thought stimulated, 
we must pronounce such sight unintelligent; — and the Eye 
an unintelligible phenomenon. But why ? The anatomical 
structure remains perfect. It is the adaptation that has been 
lost along with the finality, and this loss is fatal. Hence the 
paramount importance of finality. 

Any student may pursue this ruling idea of " adaptation to a 
functional end" through a vast range of the Animal kingdom. 
There are eyes fitted to long distances — almost telescopic ; — 
eyes so contrived as to be absolutely microscopical. Then, as 
the refraction of water differs from that of air, the optical lenses 
of fishes become rounded almost like little balls. And, the 
observer who passes into the tribes of Invertebrata, will 
acquaint himself with eyes mounted upon footstalks* and 
eyes multiplied and placed in different situations. Few 
natural objects are more wonderful than the contrivance of a 
compound eye. The many hexagonal tubes, which may be 
reckoned by the thousand, are cemented together on one 
expanded and swollen nervous disk, reminding us of the 
thalamus in the great plant order of Composite, (Syngenesia), 
— in the Elecampagne for instance, the Bur Marigold, Thistle, 
and Centaurea. A compound eye has a range of vision extend- 
ing over about 180 degrees, (half a circle), and must from its 
structure be endowed with specializing distinctness. Mind in 
the Universe, is thus presented to us, as in the New Testament, 

* The stalk-eyed Crustacea are known to most readers through the 
fascinating volume of Mr. Bell. 



PRODUCTION AND ITS LAW. 343 

—wide as the whole arch of heaven, but cognizant of a sparrow 
or a lily. 

A creature with diminished vision — such as the Mole — or 
the Amblyopsis, is a curiously interesting study in itself; — 
still more so as an example of adaptation. 

In old times, the Mole was accounted blind. Aristotle* 
observed that a structural eye exists, but that a skin is drawn 
over it, and this skin deprives the animal of sight. His 
observation has made work for commentators, from Simplicius 
downwards. Trendelenburg (on the De Anima) confines him- 
self to criticism. Torstrik makes a kind of apology for not 
excising " quce loco aroircorarcp de talpd dicuntur." Cardinal 
Tolet accepts the observation, and thinks the Mole's eyes thus 
admirably protected from the bad effects of a sudden access 
of light, when he rushes violently into appearance overground. 
Naturalists during many centuries, made the whole history of 
the mole a piece of guesswork, and no creature except the 
Sloth or the Earwig has ever been more generally misrepre- 
sented. Perhaps our familiar old English "Moldwarp" (West 
of England "Want"), might have remained a puzzle to this 
day had not a French courtier f fled from the Paris Revolution, 
and devoted his attention to Moles. The fact that the eye of 
our Western Mole is not completely closed, may be proved by 
throwing a living specimen into a pond. But, in the South 
and East of Europe the "blind mole" does really exist, X as 
has been shown by Erhard and the Prince of Musignano. In 
more than one species, the skin passes over the eye-ball 
without any loss of hair. 

* De Anima, III. 1, 4. Hist. Animal., I. 9, IV. 8. The structural eye 
is reduced to an ocellus. 

f M. Le Court : see Geoffrey St. Hilaire, Cours d'ffistoire Naturelle 
des Mammiferes. 

X One is glad of this result for Shakespeare's sake, as well as Aristotle's ; 
though a Warwickshire man might have been expected to know the exact 
truth so far as his county is concerned ; which Shakespeare did not : — 

" The blind mole casts 
Copp'd hills towards heaven." (Pericles, I. 1.) 

"Pray you tread softly that the blind mole may not 
Hear a footfall." (Tempest, IV. 1.) 



344 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



This diminution of eyesight is a case of what has been 
called " retrogression." Now the Mole is a highly developed 
Mammal, and his position in the animal kingdom entitles him 
to the best of eyes. But, they would not suit his habits. The 
same is true of the Blind-fish of Kentucky (Amblyopsis Spe- 
lseus). For such a creature, not the distinct vision of objects, — 
but a sensation of light, — was the desirable possession, — and 
the creature has it * 

It does not in the least matter, as a question of Fitness, 
whether this retrograde condition of the eye was brought 
about by natural laws slowly acting upon the animal frame, 
or produced in some more rapid way. The fitness is the 
same ; and, as we are at present engaged, not on proving the 
existence of Mind, but in illustrating the greatness of a 
confessedly existing mind, these instances of far reaching 
adaptation are very strongly in point. 

Of the cavernous life and habits of the Amblyopsis there is 
not much to be said ; though the idea of a happy existence 
amidst depths of sepulchral gloom, naturally excites our imagi- 
nation. But "the little gentleman in black" whose health used 
to be enthusiastically drunk a century and a half ago, is a 
perfect study f in himself. We are interested by his fairy-like 
gift of hearing (noted by Shakespeare) ; his gluttony ; his 
fleetness of foot ; his combativeness ; and his castle-building ! 
As a civil and military engineer, he far surpasses the beaver, 
though dwelling in dark places, and with only a dubious pair 
of eyes in his scheming quick-conceiving head. 

Probably, the sense we should all least wish to lose is our 
eyesight. Its perpetual delight, and its capacity for improve- 
ment by training are powerful motives for treasuring its 
possession. The savage and the microscopist, the artist and 
the astronomer, all train their faculty of vision; and how 
differently do these four classes of eyes see ! — The difference is, 
we know, in exact proportion to the intelligence which employs 

* The Proteus Anguinus has been rendered illustrious by Sir H. Davy's 
Consolations in Travel. Since his time, living specimens have been kept 
in England. 

t The English reader will be charmed with the account of him in Bell's 
British Quadrupeds. 



PRODUCTION AND ITS LAW. 345 

and educates them. And, conversely, how the nobly-governed 
eye informs and educates the Mind ! What a world of hope, 
then, as well as beauty, seems to die when we conceive the 
blind man in his dim solitude ! Yet the contentment of its 
sightless inmates, is one of the most salient comforts of every 
blind asylum. Most likely, their cheerfulness depends on the 
great use of finger- dexterity, and the exquisite susceptibility 
of the ear. And these delicate endowments, which make our 
several senses inlets of happiness, are amongst the most fasci- 
nating illustrations of the Universal Mind with which we 
have to do. 

The structure of the ear is far less commonly dwelt upon by 
most writers, than the structure of the.eye. Indeed, its organi- 
zation seems to less certainty explained, the problem being, 
of course, to trace the transmission of sound to the auditory 
nerve. But, as in ancient Egypt, so in modern England, the 
treatment of disease in special organs has been divided amongst 
special therapeutists ; and the ear does not fail to benefit by 
being better understood. There is, even now, room for hypo- 
thesis in some parts of the process of sonorous transmission, — 
and beyond that process, science does not pretend to go. 
Modern views, however, as Dr. Tyndall truly says, " present 
the phenomena in a connected and intelligible form, and should 
they be doomed to displacement by a more correct or compre- 
hensive theory, it will assuredly be found that the wonder is 
not diminished by the substitution of the truth." No one has 
put the wonder into a more intelligible shape than this well 
known writer, at the close of his book upon Sound * 

* "In the organ of hearing in man we have first of all the external 
orifice of the ear, which is closed at the bottom by the circular tympanic 
membrane. Behind that membrane is the cavity called the drum of the 
ear, this cavity being separated from the space between it and the brain 
by a bony partition, in which there are two orifices, the one round and 
the other oval. These orifices are also closed by fine membranes. Across 
the cavity of the drum stretches a series of four little bones : the first, 
called the hammer, is attached to the tympanic membrane ; the second, 
called the anvil, is connected by a joint with the hammer ; a third little 
round bone connects the anvil with the stirrup bone, which has its oval 
base planted against the membrane of the oval orifice above referred to. 
The base of the stirrup bone abuts against this membrane, almost cover- 



346 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



Employing instances of Design for the purpose, to us most 
relevant, and gleaning a few among hosts of shining illustra- 
tions, there is nothing more alluring than the spectacle of the 
organic world, considered as a source, not of life only, nor of 
information only, but of emotional pleasure and never failing 
enjoyment. No kind of existence can be more depressing to 
our highly-strung human nervous-system, than the shut up 
occupations which overgrown cities necessitate. Yet, with 

ing it, and leaving but a narrow rim of the membrane surrounding the 
bone. Behind the bony partition, and between it and the brain, we have 
the extraordinary organ called the labyrinth, which is filled with water, 
and over the lining membrane of which, the terminal fibres of the audi- 
tory nerve are distributed. When the tympanic membrane receives a 
shock, that shock is transmitted through the series of bones above referred 
to, and is concentrated on the membrane against which the base of the 
stirrup bone is planted. That membrane transfers the shock to the water 
of the labyrinth, which, in its turn, transfers it to the nerves. 

" The transmission, however, is not direct. At a certain place within 
the labyrinth exceedingly fine elastic bristles, terminating in sharp points, 
grow up between the terminal nerve fibres. These bristles, discovered 
by Max Schultze, are eminently calculated to sympathise with those 
vibrations of the water which correspond to their proper periods. Thrown 
thus into vibration, the bristles stir the nerve fibres which lie between 
their roots, and excite audition. At another place in the labyrinth we 
have little crystalline particles called otolithes — the Horsteine of the Ger- 
mans — embedded among the nervous filaments, and which, when they 
vibrate, exert an intermittent pressure upon the adjacent nerve fibres 
thus exciting audition. The otolithes probably subserve a different pur- 
pose from that fulfilled by the bristles of Schultze. They are fitted, by 
their weight, to accept and prolong the vibrations of evanescent sounds, 
which might otherwise escape attention. The bristles of Schultze, on the 
contrary, because of their extreme lightness, would instantly yield up an 
evanescent motion, while they are eminently fitted for the transmission 
of continuous vibrations. Finally, there is in the labyrinth a wonderful 
organ, discovered by the Marchese Corti, which is to all appearance a 
musical instrument, with its chords so stretched as to accept vibrations 
of different periods, and transmit them to the nerve filaments which tra- 
verse the organ. Within the ears of men, and without their knowledge 
or contrivance, this lute of 3,000 strings has existed for ages, accepting 
the music of the outer world, and rendering it fit for reception by the 
brain. Each musical tremor which falls upon this organ selects from its 
tensioned fibres the one appropriate to its own pitch, and throws that 
fibre into unisonant vibration. And thus, no matter how complicated 
the motion of the external air may be, those microscopic strings can 



PRODUCTION AND ITS LAW. 



347 



what unrepressed vigour of delight does the artizan, the phy- 
sician, the schoolmaster, or the curate of a town parish, look 
upon the open world beyond ! And, never has there existed 
any human being more truly impressible by Nature's loveli- 
ness, or more skilled in conveying the impression to the minds 
of others, than a genuine British Naturalist. For the holiday- 
maker to walk with such a lover of Nature through field and 
forest, over moor and mountain, by rivulet, lake or sea, is to 
gain a new sense of wonder and admiration ; — new perceptions 
of excellence, symmetry, and unity ; while freshened emotions 
of religious awe and trust keep springing upwards from them 
all It is with outward nature, as it is with individual natures ; 
the regard of a loving eye is the truerevealer of hidden secrets. 
For in reality we see, not only with our bodily sense and our 
contemplative reason, but also with the strength and insight 
of affection. And thus many a weary Man perpetually finds 
the aspect of the visible universe indescribably soothing amidst 
his own confusions and disappointments. He may feel, at 
times, that his human heart can penetrate beyond what eye 
and head have taught him ; and, while thoughtfully observing 
the footprints of creative mind, he can feel within his bosom a 
sense of superhuman tenderness, like the warm breath of his 
living Creator. 

The very fact that highly-endowed and deeply thoughtful 
men * have so felt and spoken, ought not to be without its 

analyse it and reveal the constituents of which it is composed." TyndaLL 
On Sound, pp. 323-4 and 5. We may add that the " fine elastic bristles," 
mentioned by Dr. Tyndall, are known to be prolongations of the free 
ends of the epithelial cells. The other ends of these cells — (i.e. the deep 
or attached ends) are delicately ramified, and are said to be in connection 
with slender nerve-fibrils. 

* E.g. , Coleridge. " I have at this moment before me, in the flowery 
meadow, on which my eye is now reposing, one of its most soothing chap- 
ters, in which there is no lamenting word, no one character of guilt or 
anguish. For never can I look and meditate on the vegetable creation 
without a feeling similar to that with which we gaze at a beautiful infant 
that has fed itself asleep at its mother's bosom, and smiles in its strange 
dream of obscure yet happy sensations. The same tender and genial 
pleasure takes possession of me, and this pleasure is checked and drawn 
inward by the like aching melancholy, by the same whispered remon- 
strance, and made restless by a similar impulse of aspiration. It seems 



348 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



influence. There is much conveyed — very much indeed— by 
the truth that the world is beautiful. If, when we examine 
natural production, intelligent operation is seen to imply an 
operative intelligence, is it not also true that realized beauty 
implies an ideal beauty, intelligently preconceived in a Mind 
itself beautiful ? Had there been nothing in earth or sky to 
soothe, elevate, and make happy, with what different feelings, 
should we have attempted to picture productive Mind at work 
through an unlovely Universe ! 

as if the soul said to herself : From this state hast thou fallen ! Such 
shouldst thou still become, thyself all permeable to a holier power ! thyself 
at once hidden and glorified by its own transparency, as the accidental 
and dividuous in this quiet and harmonious object is subjected to the life 
and light of nature ; to that life and light of nature, I say, which shines 
in every plant and flower, even as the transmitted power, love and wisdom 
of God over all fills, and shines through, nature ! But what the plant is, 
by an act not its own and unconsciously — that must thou make thyself to 
become — must by prayer and by a watchful and unresisting spirit, join at 
least with the preventive and assisting grace to make thyself, in that light 
of conscience which inflameth not, and with that knowledge which puffeth 
not up ! " Statesman's Manual. Appendix B. pp. 267, 8, Ed. 1839. . 



ADDITIONAL NOTE. 



ON THE DOCTRINE OF CHANCES APPLIED TO THE 
STRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE EYE. 

The present Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford wrote, in 
1867, as follows :— 

"The chances of any accidental variation in such an instrument being 
an improvement are small indeed. Suppose, for instance, one of the 
surfaces of the crystalline lens of the eye of a creature, possessing a 
crystalline and cornea, to be accidentally altered, then I say, that unless 
the form of the other surface is simultaneously altered, in one only way 
out of millions of possible ways, the eye would not be optically improved. 
An alteration also in the two surfaces of the crystalline lens, whether 
accidental or otherwise, would involve a definite alteration in the form of 
the cornea, or in the distance of its surface from the centre of the 
crystalline lens, in order that the eye may be optically better. All these 
alterations must be simultaneous and definite in amount, and these 
definite amounts must coexist in obedience to an extremely complicated 
law. To my apprehension then, that so complex an instrument as an 
eye should undergo a succession of millions of improvements, by means 
of a succession of millions of accidental alterations, is not less improbable, 
than if all the letters in the ' Origin of Species ' were placed in a box, 
and on being shaken and poured out millions on millions of times, they 
should at last come out together in the order in which they occur in that 
fascinating and, in general, highly philosophical work. 

"But my objections do not stop here. The improvement of an organ 
must be an improvement relative to the new circumstances by which the 
organ is surrounded. Suppose, then, that an eye is altered for the better 
in relation to one set of circumstances under which it is placed. By-and- 
bye there arise a second set of circumstances, and the eye is again, by 
Natural Selection, altered and improved relatively to the second set of 
circumstances. What is there to make the second set of circumstances 
such that the second improvement (relative to them) shall be an im- 
provement or progress in the direction of the ultimate goal of the human 
eye ? Why should not the second improvement be a retrogression 
away from the ultimate organ now possessed by man, and necessary to 
his well-being '\ But all this suiting of the succession of circumstances 



350 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



is to go on, not once or twice, but millions on millions of times. If this 
be so, then not only must there be a Bias in the order of the succession 
of the circumstances, or, at all events, in the vast outnumbering of the 
unfavourable circumstances by the favourable, but so strong a bias, as to 
remove the whole process from the accidental to the intentional. The 
bias implies the existence of a Law, a Mind, a Will. The process 
becomes one not of Natural Selection, but of Selection by an Intelligent 
Will." Analogies in the Progress of Nature and Grace, (being the Hulsean 
Lectures for 1867,) Appendix A, p. 125 seq. The whole article should be 
carefully studied by the reader. 



CHAPTEB VI. 
CAUSATION. 



Chidhar, the Prophet ever-young 
Thus loosed the bridle of his tongue. 

I journeyed by a goodly Town, 
Beset with many a garden fair, 
And asked of one who gathered down 
Large fruit, ' how long the Town was there 
He spoke, nor chose his hand to stay, 
' The town has stood for many a day, 
And will be here for ever and aye. ' 

A thousand years passed by and then 
I went the self-same road again. 

No vestige of that Town I traced,— 
But one poor swain his horn employed, — 
His sheep unconscious browsed and grazed, 
I asked ' when was that Town destroyed 1 ' 
He spoke, nor would his horn lay by, 
' One thing may grow and another die, 
But I know nothing of Towns — not I.' 

A thousand years went on and then 
I passed the self-same place again. 

There in the deep of waters cast 

His nets one lonely fisherman, 

And as he drew them up at last 

I asked him ' how that Lake began ? ' 

He looked at me and laughed to say, 
' The waters spring for ever and aye, 
And fish is plenty every day.' 

A thousand years passed by and then 
I went the self-same road again. 

I found a country wild and rude, 

And, axe in hand, beside a tree, 

The Hermit of that Solitude, — 

I asked ' how old that Wood might be ? ' 



He spoke, { I count not time at all, 
A tree may rise, a tree may fall, 
The Forest overlives us all.' 



" A thousand years went on and then 
I passed the self-same place again. 

" And there a glorious City stood, 
And 'mid tumultuous market-cry, 
I asked ' Where rose the Town 1 where Wood 
Pasture and Lake forgotten lie ? ' 

They heard me not, and little blame, — 

For them the world is as it came, 

And all things must be still the same. 

" A thousand years shall pass, and then 
I mean to try that road again." 

Lord Houghton, after Riickert. 



"What a modern talks of by the name, Forces of Nature, Laws of 
Nature ; and does not figure as a divine thing ; not even as one thing 
at all, but as a set of things, undivine enough, — saleable, curious, good 
for propelling steam-ships ! With our Sciences and Cyclopaedias, we are 
apt to forget the divineness, in those laboratories of ours. We ought not 
to forget it ! That once well forgotten, I know not what else were worth 
remembering." — Carlyle. Heroes. 

" Two worlds, the one intellectual, the other sensual, were equally 
given to us from the beginning, and all attempts to deduce them from 
one principle (except the Deity) have failed." — Von Feuchtersleben. 

" What am I ? how produced ? and for what end ? 
Whence drew I being 1 to what period tend ? 
Am I th' abandon'd orphan of blind chance ? 
Dropped by wild atoms in disorder'd dance 1 
Or from an endless chain of causes wrought, 
And of unthinking substance, born with thought ? 
By motion which began without a Cause, 
Supremely wise, without design or laws." — Arbuthnot. 

" Pouvoir c'est vouloir." — Guesses at Truth. 

" If only once weird Time had rent asunder 

The curtain of the Clouds, and shown us Night 
Climbing into the awful Infinite 

Those stairs whose steps are worlds, above and under, 

Glory on glory, wonder upon wonder ! . . . . 

23 



" Ah ! sure the heart of Man, too strongly tried 
By Godlike Presences so vast and fair, 
Withering with dread, or sick with love's despair, 
Had wept for ever, and to Heaven cried, 
Or struck with lightnings bf delight had died ! 

" But he, though heir of Immortality, 

With mortal dust too feeble for the sight, 
Draws thro' a veil God's overwhelming light ; 
Use arms the Soul — anon there moveth by 
A more majestic Angel — and we die ! " 

Frederick Tennyson. 



SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER VI. 



The two last Chapters are intended to be read consecutively, but are 
formally separated in order to mark the transition of Argument. If 
this is borne in mind, and the line of thought pursued continuously, 
there will appear to be little need for further elucidation. 

The main object of the present Chapter is to distinguish the physical 
chain of Sequency from Causation properly so termed. In other 
words to divide the World, as we see it, into two spheres ; the 
Mechanical and the Personal. 

The former is characterized by invariable Sequency. The latter by Causa- 
tion, and by causal interference with the mechanical chain of ante- 
cedent and consequent. 

Inferences are drawn from these contrasted facts. 

Analysis. — Causation not explained by any of the empirical sciences. 
Time accounts for nothing. Explicit statements of scientific men 
on the subject. " Inquire elsewhere." This is one good reason for 
the study of Natural Theology. 

Only one kind of true Cause known to us by Experience. Distinction 
between a true Cause and the invariable antecedent of an invariable 
consequent. Antecedent enters Chain of natural sequency ; Cause 
does not. Cause must account for the several links of Chain, for the 
connection between those links, and for the entire Chain considered 
as a Whole and Unity in Nature. This position illustrated and in- 
vestigated. How grasped by the young mind. Its verification. 

Known facts of Causation result in the Unknowable ; "a condition which 
attaches to the most certain of all truths. Personality a case in 
point. Another case that of alterations caused by "Volition in chains 
of Natural Sequency. Common-sense allowances made for this last 
fact. 

Application a fortiori to the Divine Personality. Presumption for mira- 
cles ; its nature and limits. Intervention does not destroy Order 
and Unity. Hence we distinguish two possible kinds of Evidence, 
from, — 

1. General Order of World. 

2. Occasional variation. 

Both leading up to a Supreme causal Personality, 



CHAPTEE VI. 



CAUSATION. 

This sixth Chapter occupies a totally different sphere of 
Thought from the one preceding it. Instead of examining the 
world as it now is, we shall inquire what its present existence 
necessarily presupposes. Time, in the ordinary meaning of 
the word, is no factor in our calculation. We have to deal 
with Time's antecedents. 

These words sound like a long farewell to our companion 
and auxiliary, — Natural Science ! Geology, Palaeontology, As- 
tronomy, are unanimous in telling us of periods immeasurably 
remote. But, they are all silent on two more distant and pro- 
found subjects — a Beginning and an Eternity. In the world 
best known to us, vast cycles — each comprehending many 
ages of life — point back to preceding cycles made up of ages 
more numerous still, during which the world -was absolutely 
void of life. Upon that primaeval fabric, are graved long 
records of changes beyond the reach of Thought. A single 
epoch, — the era when our globe, an incandescent mass of 
matter, was cooling in its flight, — is alone sufficient to exhaust 
all our imaginative powers. Did water first surround the 
glowing orb as a heated vapour ? Did clouds first descend upon 
it like a fiery rain-storm ? Suppose some sentient creature 
floating through ether to look upon the unformed world, — 
how wild, how weird must have been the spectacle ! How 
different from what earth and ocean may appear to any similar 
Intelligence now. 

Science discoursing upon such topics is more poetical than 
the most sublime poetry. And the science that does speak of 



358 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



them is the widest of all sciences. After certain cycles of 
ages, the Biologist hands us over to the Mineralogist and the 
Chemist. After certain other cycles, we give up those guides 
in turn; and gauge nature by measuring mass, speed, force, 
comparing our own orb with kindred orbs, and trying to 
collect what the comparison can say respecting the earliest 
conditions of the Universe. But, all this is no answer to our 
proposed question concerning Time's antecedents. " The terri- 
tory of physics " says a well-known physicist, " is wide, but it 
has its limits from which we look with vacant gaze into the 
region beyond." * And these words are evidently true. Time 
serves, in this respect, as the index of our incapacity. We 
travel back from the period of Man to the period of a ferny 
coal field, a trilobite or an Eozoon, and from thence to the period 
when nebulous light-masses shone out through illimitable 
space. No doubt, when we have learned to contemplate such 
vapoury states of attenuated matter, we have learned a great 
deal. Modern analysis finds in them the elementary consti- 
tuents of our own planetary system ; the same elements which 
glow with greater apparent brilliancy in our Sun. But this is 
not all. To the sober eye of science, those fires, which burned 
before stars were kindled, display in their splendours mate- 
rials entering into the composition of our transitory frames ; 
materials required continually by our bodies and by our 
productive arts. We live, if modern science may be trusted, 
by the assimilation of elements now shining in the celestial 
sphere ; elements which glittered there through long cycles of 
ages before our Earth was. And we employ the same elements 
in the common industries of civilization.! This bewildering 
thought seems to link us with that Sun, which is the glory of 
our day, with those wandering lamps which make night 

* Tyndall's Earlier Thoughts ; in his Essays, p. 72. Dr. Tyndall is 
never weary of repeating this useful truth, and we may honour him for 
so doing. The following references are to his last very popular work, and 
in each place the same thought will be found differently expressed 
according to the difference of subject-matter. Fragments of Science, 
pp. 93, 105, 121, 163, 442. 

f George Stephenson used to watch the speed of his locomotive, and 
pleasantly remark that he was utilizing the solar heat of the great 
coal-period. The words were his own. The idea was Herschel's. 



CAUSATION. 



359 



beautiful ; and with all the hosts of heaven, which have always 
fascinated the upward gaze of man, and have sometimes won 
his heart to worship them. 

The more overwhelming these thoughts appear, the grander 
is the emphasis of our yet unanswered question. We have 
seen that we are able to travel backwards — not in fancy ; 
but in reason — from era to era, however incalculable the 
measurement of each era may be ; and, when our travels have 
reached their utmost goal, we find the marvellous Continuity 
of Nature still unbroken. And this very fact, is, in itself, 
a sufficient proof that we have not approached Time's ante- 
cedents. What we have really done, is to carry the Present 
with us into an immeasurably distant Past. We know not 
yet what is presupposed by both, — we cannot say what went 
before them. 

It is very important for us to be thoroughly clear upon the 
result. For there is a sort of unreflecting idea afloat, that if 
vast periods of Time are conceived, the whole Universe is con- 
ceived also. All seems explained, since everything may come 
to pass in Time ! So it may, in one sense. Time gives oppor- 
tunity ; but then there must be a moving power (a) to work in 
the opportunity. Let it therefore be distinctly borne in mind, 
that Time causes nothing. To dispense with a spring of action^ 
is to imagine that Time will stop the river's flow, or that the 
river will stop without a cause in time : — 

" Rusticus expectat, dum defluat amnis ; at ille 
Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis eevum." 

In reality, Time accounts neither for good nor for evil, 

(a) " Time is no agent, as some people appear to think it, that it should 
accomplish anything of itself. Looking at a heap of stones for a thou- 
sand years, will do no more toward making a house of them, than looking 
at it for one moment. The cause is obvious. Time, when applied to 
works of any kind, being only a succession of relevant acts, each further- 
ing the work to be accomplished, it is clear that even an infinite succes- 
sion of irrelevant, and consequently useless acts, would no more achieve 
or forward the completion of it, than an infinite number of jumps in the 
same place would advance one toward a journey's end ; for there is a 
motion without progress, in time as well as space ; where that has often 
remained stationary which appeared to us, in leaving it behind, to have 
receded."— Guesses at Truth. First Ed., pp. 61-2. 



360 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



neither for the end nor yet for the beginning of any single 
work. 

And the same is true respecting any chain, however long, made 
up of antecedents and consequents, however numerous. We 
see in them movements propagating movements ; but then we 
are obliged to ask, what moved the first of them ? The reader 
may remember Professor Huxley's picture of a cosmic vapour, 
from a knowledge of which a sufficient Intelligence might have 
predicted our present world. Looking further, we find this 
cosmic vapour to be composed (as he says) of molecules 
possessing forces or properties ; in other words, what he really 
described was a potential Universe ; not a Cause, but an 
already caused production. What, then, caused it ? 

It was not the Professor's business, —nor is it the business 
of any Physiologist or of any Physicist, to explain what lies 
beyond the territories of his science. Consequently he does 
not account for the existence of this " primitive nebulosity." 
The "sufficient Intelligence" is only spoken of a possible 
interpreter or prophet. And Professor Huxley is right and 
wise in his reticence. 

Professor Tyndall is equally wise and right in telling us 
that " Science knows much of this intermediate phase of things 
that we call nature, of which it is the product ; but science 
knows nothing of the origin or destiny of nature." * 

There is always a rightness and wisdom in stating a limit, 
and an issue, distinctly. No one endowed with clearness of 
vision, will think the Universe as likely to be adequately 
accounted for by an eternal nebula, as by an eternity of Mind. 
No one will exactly state to himself, the meaning of such 
words as Chance, Time, Law, and others of a like description ; 
and, with those meanings in remembrance, pronounce that any 
or all of them can explain the origin of anything. But by 
popular lecturers and article-makers, immeasurable series of 
conditions are sometimes mentioned in a manner which almost 
implies that, because immeasurable, the speaker or writer 
supposes that such conditions may possibly be creative. 

Any reader of current literature will scarcely need reminding, 

* Fragments of Science, p. 442. The passage has been referred to 
before — and its pith alone is given here — i.e, the central sentence. 



CAUSATION. 



361 



that most modern savants usually acquiesce in, and feel bur- 
dened by, a sense of " the Inscrutable." And therefore, when 
summing up the results of scientific truth, they honestly and 
consistently reduce their disciples to an alternative, — an alter- 
native of which no disciple of any special science ought reason- 
ably to complain. Choose, they tell him, between confessing, 
" here is the Incomprehensible — here I rest or, if you please, 
endeavouring to " find other means of knowledge, which we do 
not pretend to furnish." This is no more than to say, and say 
fairly, " Be satisfied with such information as we can give, — 
or, if you please, inquire elsewhere." And this seems reason- 
able ; for who would assert that a Professor of Poetry ought to 
give competent instruction in the Calculus ? 

We may assume that every student of Natural Theology has 
made up his mind to " inquire elsewhere." And it is the part 
of an earnest man so to do. Were not the Future linked, to the 
Present, we all might feel less earnest, less persevering, less 
anxious for inquiry. Yet, if there be a Future beyond our 
Present, we at once perceive a weight of reason beyond all 
powers of estimate, why such a connecting chain must certainly 
exist. All our experience, every argument from analogy, 
and all morality, fall into one and the same scale. But of 
this, more hereafter. There is no doubt that our wisdom and 
our duty coincide with our natural instincts, in bringing us to 
this resolution. We may not be able to learn all we could 
wish of that Future which follows our present ; but what we 
can truly learn is to us a treasure beyond price. Let us, there- 
fore, proceed as fellow-pilgrims in the search. 

It is an undeniable fact — one amongst the hard and actual 
facts which life teaches — that, in the whole of our experience, 
we never know of more than one kind of cause, — a cause, that 
is, in the true sense of originating any event or series of events. 
Nothing can be more certain as respects our knowledge of the 
material world. From this point of view, Sir J. Herschel 
describes Brown's book on "Cause and Effect" as " a work 
of great acuteness and subtlety of reasoning on some points, 
but in which the whole train of argument is vitiated by one 
enormous oversight ; the omission, namely, of a distinct and 
immediate personal consciousness of causation in his enumera- 



362 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



tion of that sequence of events, by which the volition of the 
mind is made to terminate in the motion of material objects. 
I mean the consciousness of effort, accompanied with intention 
thereby to accomplish an end, as a thing entirely distinct from 
mere desire or volition on the one hand, and from mere 
spasmodic contraction of muscles on the other." * 

This causation we experience continually. A heavy stone 
falls from a wall, and kills a man. No one threw it. We say 
it fell — or, as a physicist might express it, obeyed the law of 
gravitation. But we may remember that from the tower of 
Thebez "a certain woman cast a piece of a millstone upon 
Abimelech's head and all to break his scull." We form quite 
a different opinion of this event. We say, here is a case in 
which " the volition of the mind is made to terminate in the 
motion of a material object." Some might accuse, others 
excuse, the woman of Thebez ; but all would argue that she 
caused the death of Abimelech. 

Your boy wants to beat a chair which has fallen upon him ; 
you tell him why he must not, and all you say is sound 
philosophy. He also wants to kill his cat for devouring his 
canary bird; and again you philosophize correctly. But, 
suppose your young philosopher for his own pleasure wrings 
his canary bird's neck ? The chair fell by mechanical law — 
the cat obeyed the law of her hungry instinct — but your boy is 
culpable. He was the true cause of his own cruel act, — in a 
word he was responsible. And this same truth of Causation, 
involved in Responsibility, and constituting one of its neces- 
sary factors, is like Mind in Mr. Mill, — a truth which we 
must accept — inexplicable, but unquestionably real. We know 
that Will is a Cause, — and we do not actually know of any 
other cause in the wide Universe. The fact comes home to us 
in a variety of ways. Was Thurtell the cause or the 
physical antecedent of Weare's death ? If not the cause, we 
ought never to think him, or any murderer, slaver, torturer, 
or tyrant, at all in the wrong ; neither can we hold them in 
any manner responsible. 

Let the reader put this case to himself in as many different 
shapes as he can. The result will always come to the same 
* Astronomy, Chapter viii. init., note p. 264. Ed. 1850. 



CAUSATION. 



363 



issue. We may suppose a Nebula, Law, Force, so arranged as 
to be the physical antecedent of a world. And nothing can be 
more marvellous than the idea of such an arrangement ! But 
we cannot imagine any existence really causing an effect, 
save one, — a Will. Therefore, if we wish to go beyond Nebula, 
Law, or Force, which are merely physical antecedents, — and 
ask what caused one or all of them, we are obliged (so far as 
we are disciples of experience) to say their Cause was a Will. 
And when we say this, we allege a sufficient reason. 

A few paragraphs back, we availed ourselves of the authori- 
tative verdict pronounced by scientific thinkers, on the question 
of what is, and what is not, from their point of view, know- 
able. And we saw where physics terminated, — that is, in a 
Nebula. This is their limit. 

Yet, there is nothing to hinder a physicist from becoming 
also a Natural Theologian. It is not every man who will rest 
in a negative conclusion. Professor Baden Powell was among 
the malcontents in this respect ; and we desire now to quote 
from his writings some passages referred to in the argument of 
a former Chapter. 

But before doing so, it would be unfair to conceal that a 
tribute of gratitude appears due to writers who mark the 
boundary of their own thought, however little we ourselves 
desire to stay acquiescently within its limitations. There is 
honesty in their act; — there is an incitement for other men to 
try out their lines of thinking also. Finally, all such writers 
are unexceptionable witnesses to the interest and reality belong- 
ing to a separate science of Natural Theology. In all these 
respects, they occupy a totally different position from the 
indifFerentist or sneering sceptic ; and it would be injustice to 
confound such broad distinctions of moral aspect. With this 
acknowledgment let us return to Baden Powell. 

In his " Connexion of Natural and Divine Truth"* he writes 
thus : — 

" The study of physical causes (understood in the simple meaning 
which we have before endeavoured to fix,) while it supplies the 
unassailable evidence of design and adjustment, as unavoidably carries 

* Page 178, seq. 



364 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



us thence onward to the idea of an Intelligence from which that 
design emanated, and of an agency by which that adjustment was 
produced. It brings us, in a word, to recognise an influence of 
another kind, of an order different from, and far above that of physical 
causes or material action : — to acknowledge a sublime moral cause, 
the universally operating source of creative power and providential 
wisdom, (b) . . . . We have already noticed, in other cases, the 
ambiguities arising from the diversity of meaning attached to the same 
term 4 'cause." Here, then, it becomes more peculiarly necessary if 
we adopt the popular expression, " the First Cause," to recur care- 
fully to the distinction, if we would preserve any clearness of reason- 
ing. 

"We refer to senses of the term absolutely distinct in hind. Nor 
is it a term of mere verbal difference. It is of importance, whether 
in guarding against fallacies in evidence or in answering the cavils of 
scepticism. . . . When we ascend to the contemplation of creative 
intelligence, the distinction is not between a prior and a subsequent 
train of material action, but between physical order and moral volition. 
It will thus be apparent that the metaphor so often used of the chain 
of natural causes ivhose last and highest link is its immediate connexion 
with the Deity ; — the very phrase of a succession of secondary causes 
traced up to a first cause, — and the like, (so commonly employed,) are 
founded on a totally mistaken analogy. 

"If we retain such metaphorical language at all, it would be a 
more just mode of speaking to describe the Deity as the Divine 
artificer of the whole chain, — not to connect Him with its links ; — to 
represent the secondary causes as combined into joint operation by 
His power and will, — but not to make Him one of them." And again ; 
— "If we require the aid of metaphor in attempting to give utterance to 
those vast conceptions with which the mind is overpowered, instead 
of speaking of the first and secondary links in a chain of causation, 
and the like, let us rather recur to the analogy of the arch (before 
introduced,) and we shall be adopting at once a more just and 
expressive figure, and shall here run no risk of speaking as if we 
confounded the stones with the builder, — their mutually supporting 
force with the skill of the architect who adjusted them."* 

(b) Compare our summary of Powell's argument on this point, pp. 173-4: 
ante. " "We see the necessity of a Moral cause as distinguished from a physical 
antecedent, when we survey Nature. But Nature does not contain the idea in 
an explicit shape. She only necessitates its acceptance." 

* Having before quoted at some length from this distinguished Professor, it 
seems needless to add anything here, except that the same sentiments will be 



CAUSATION. 



365 



What Baden Powell called " physical causation," is now 
more commonly known as invariable antecedency, or invariable 
succession. Antecedents and consequents are phenomena of 
the natural world, — and the connection between them is their 
Law. 

Now, suppose we take the Alphabet to represent a series 
of these antecedents and consequents, the latter invariably 
following the former ; it does not, (as far as argument goes,) in 
the least signify what the series really is, any more than when 
we calculate algebraically. But to make things plain, let the 
Alphabet represent 26 cycles of succession ; each cycle con- 
taining as many millions of years, or ages, as you choose to 
grant for the duration of the Natural Universe. We may 
state the problem thus, — the law of succession being assumed 
in our series as constant. 

If we have Z, there certainly must have been Y, and con- 
versely; — 

If there were no Y, there cannot possibly be Z. We go 
on, — 

If Y, then certainly X ; 

If no X, then Y is impossible. 

As we know Z in fact, we get back to Y; and, as we 
find Y, we retrogress to X. 

And the retrogression continues, say till we reach B, — 

If B, certainly A; 

If no A, then B is impossible. 

But, what are we to say of A ? 

If A then certainly — what ? 

If no what I — then A is impossible. 

It does not signify how far the chain of physical law may 
extend. From its very essence and definition, you must arrive 
finally at a first link. Or, in other words, the Continuity of 
Nature may go back through Time immeasurable, — Time will 
after all lead you to Time's antecedents. And when you have 
arrived at your first link, and inquire what must necessarily 
have preceded Time, it is well to consider the sort of account 

found reasserted in Ms later works.— See Spirit of Inductive Philosophy, pp. 
152-3, and 175-9; and compare Chapter II. ante, Additional notes D and E, 
pp. 103-107, where these passages are in part quoted and commented on. 



366 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



which alone you can accept, because it alone will sufficiently 
satisfy your reason. 

You want, then, something which properly accounts first 
for A ; next for the link between A and B ; and thirdly, by 
consequence, for the whole Alphabet. 

If, with this statement in mind, the reader turns back to the 
extracts made from Powell, he will see the force of several 
points strongly put by the Professor. He will see, for example, 
how inevitably physical causation carries us back to another, 
and very diverse Causation, — diverse in kind — not simply 
different in degree. Also, how the idea of Cause in this latter 
sense, takes us quite out of the physical nexus. And, further, 
that the only admissible Conception of a First Universal Cause, 
must be a conception of something which will not only bring 
about A, but likewise account for the entire series, linked 
together and consecutive, into one resulting Whole. For the 
Whole itself ; in brief for the Many and the One. 

We have now to ask further, what Facts can tell us re- 
specting these two kinds of Causation. And let us again 
employ our letters, but rather in a different way. 

Suppose P stands for a fact, which may also be described as 
a natural phenomenon. To account for P we go back to 0, 
retrogress to N, M, and so on, as shewn already. 

Again, suppose another fact which cannot be described as a 
natural phenomenon. Let us try whether P may, with equal 
propriety, stand for a human production or performance. That 
is — whether, instead of being a mere phenomenal fact, it may 
also be spoken of as an act. 

We want then to account for P, thus considered. A striking 
circumstance appears at once evident, that to find the " why " 
of human activity we do not look to any antecedent ; — we look 
to a consequent, or a series of consequences. The question we 
ask is, — with what view P became an act ? In other words, 
we try to account for P, not by 0, N, M, etc., but by Q, R, S, 
etc. For example : let P represent a murder. The crime was 
done for the sake of money, and for things which money will 
purchase ; that is, the consequents, — Q, R, S, and so on, forming 
a series designed ; — gains and purposes, long or short. But, no 
one would say that another series foregoing (0, N, M) ne- 



CAUSATION. 



337 



cessitated the act ; — that they were the certain antecedents of a 
necessary consequent (P) the murder. If it were so, we should 
have to congratulate the murderer for having been forced into 
so profitable a performance, and we should also have to leave 
him in the peaceable enjoyment of his profits. 

Acts, therefore, — or volitional facts — move forwards through • 
a series of consequents; while phenomena — that is, physical 
facts — run backwards through a series of antecedents. 

If pressed to find a Cause for an act, we are never in a posi- 
tion to say, — 

If P, then certainly ; 

If no 0, then P impossible. 
We say, on the contrary, that the Cause of the act was 
Volitional, — that is, it was done by an agent or person acting. 
And further, that the consequents (Q, R, S, etc.) represent the 
purpose of the actor or agent, and that he is responsible for 
having adopted them as his prevalent motives or induce- 
ments. 

But from these necessities of thought which hold alike as 
abstract truths, and in practical experience, several inferences 
follow : — 

A volitional cause or agent, may stand before a series of 
consequents ; — but cannot be ranged after such a series. 

Our series represented by the Alphabet, was taken to be a 
series of invariable sequency. That is, each factor (letter) 
presupposed antecedents, which necessitated every factor in 
succession. Therefore we cannot represent any agent or voli- 
tional Cause, by an element (or letter) of that series at all. 
Nor yet his act. It follows on no such chain of antecedents. 
It is done in vieiv of certain consequents. 

If, therefore, we ask what can be conceived respecting the 
causation of the Universe, — its cause must (as Powell says), 
be placed absolutely outside and prior to the whole series. 
In other words, — a volitional or First cause can never belong 
to the physical chain of antecedent and consequent, bound 
together by natural law. And the reason is plain : in no true 
sense can such Cause ever be a necessary consequent at all. 
Such a Cause calls into existence, not only A, but the whole 
consecutive alphabet, representing cycles of millions of age?. 



368 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



Not the world's primseval state alone, — but the whole law- 
connected Universe. Thus, First Cause, and Secondary cause, 
apply not to difference of sequency alone, — but to an intrinsic 
and essential distinction. And, this distinction is so vast, 
that between the World's First Cause, and any given Secondary 
cause, there is fixed a gulf of separation as wide as the whole 
potential Universe. 

Another way of looking at the subject of Causation may 
appear simpler to some minds. 

Let the reader recal the problems of Idealism and Realism 
already discussed. He will also remember what Mr. Masson 
calls " the paramount result " to Mill and Hamilton alike ; — 
the inevitable persuasion all men have of their own distinct- 
ness from an external world of things and persons surrounding 
them. 

With this accepted result in remembrance, let the reader 
ask himself the further question, how he became originally 
impressed with the grand division of that world of objectivity, 
— how he first separated Persons from Things 1 He will account 
for the conception in some such way as this : — As a child, he 
was injured both by his nurse and his nursery table. He 
discovered that the table had been placed where it stood ; 
but that his nurse struck him with a passionate intention of 
compelling him to obey her, against his own will. And, thus, 
in the succession of little troubles and events perpetually going 
on, he learned to distinguish them all into two broad classes : 
events dependent on previous circumstances, such as the 
position of the table ; and events productive of intentional 
consequences, such as the ill temper of his nurse. The first 
class of events he could control by a change of outside con- 
ditions ; — he could either move the table or keep his body out 
of its way. But, the nurse he had to humour and conciliate ; 
and he soon found, to his cost, that very often his efforts to win 
her favour were unavailing, because her temper was so very, 
very bad. And this whole process of Childish reasoning be- 
came confirmed in after life by his practical reason, and 
verified by finding it work well every day. The child who 
thus ceases to blame the table for hurting him, but blames the 
temper of the nurse, is the " father of the Man," who praises or 



CAUSATION. 



369 



blames only when he discovers a true cause; and steadily 
ascribes Causation to a Will. And, employ what words we 
choose, this causative power is the grand tenable distinction 
between Persons and Things. And no amount of refined 
theory will ever induce us to act upon any other supposition. 
We remain fixed in our belief that a true Cause must, without 
exception, be always a true Personality. 

It is worth while observing, likewise, with what emphasis 
of words, mankind marks its sense of this fact. We all say 
that we see such and such a cause, — or such and such a will 
at work. And the energy of expression is justified by analysis. 
For, when we see an orange or a cathedral, what we really 
perceive through our eye, may be summed as coloured surface, 
outline, light and shade. And seeing this, we say that we see 
the solid ; — that is, seeing effects, we maintain that we see the 
cause. Moreover, this is true, if we remember that seeing is a 
compound process ; the eye of the mind looking through the 
eye of the body. And we ventured to use the same language 
in our last chapter, and also to justify it, when we spoke of 
seeing the Intelligible. The man, therefore, is not far wrong 
who says that he sees God everywhere. 

Look at the subject in whatever point of view we will, — as 
an abstract question — as a calculable problem — or an affair of 
plain common sense, — the result must finally come to one and 
the same thing. There can be no Cause, — no First to stand 
before (not in) the series of sequences, except a Being, Will, 
Personality. 

Now as a matter of truth, there must necessarily exist some 
sufficient account of the Universe. Physical Science is right 
to speak of it as unknowable * by Physical investigation. It 
cannot lie in the physical series, — it must stand prior to the 
whole. It admits of no antecedent ; but the sum of all existence 
is its consequent. Therefore, the sufficient account is a first 
Being, Will, and Personality. We must accept the result and 
acknowledge its truth, because it is an inevitable fact, if the 
question is argued upon the ground of other facts practically 
known, and not of theory, conjecture, or supposed possibilities. 

* Of course, if any man pronounces anything absolutely unknowable, he 
says virtually, " my knowledge equals the sum total of all knowledge." 

24 



/ 



370 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



But it involves theoretical difficulties which we must acknow- 
ledge to be inexplicable. We cannot, however, forget that 
many other truths and matters of fact are inexplicable also.* 
A circumstance equally true, and equally incapable ox 
theoretical explanation, may be stated as follows. If we revert, 
once more, to our representative letters of the alphabet, it will 
be recollected that the letter P was taken to represent a crime, 
— a murder for the sake of gain. P had for its consequents 
Q, R, S, but did not depend on the antecedents 0, N, M ; it 
was introduced extraneously into the series. In other words, 
the crime entailed a number of effects, which had in reality been 
premeditated by the murderer ; while, in itself, it was, to be 
accounted for only as the act of a Volitional Cause or Agent. 
And the remarkable point to us now, is the circumstance that 
such a designed series of events can thus be introduced into 
the order of nature by man's spontaneous choice. These 
determinations are in fact alterations in the ordinary course 
of Nature ; and contradictions of its absolutely invariable 
sequency. (c) This fact, again, appears to be theoretically 

* Every one who writes this word, must feel tempted to ask why such 
a condition attaches to any truth. This Essay avoids metaphysical in- 
quiries ; we must, therefore, rest content with having plainly shewn that 
it does attach to the most certain and necessary of all truths. 

(c) The reader may be pleased to recal Professor Huxley's two 
necessary beliefs — necessary, that is, for making the world we live in 
less miserable and less ignorant. First, that the Order of Nature is 
practically ascertainable. Secondly, that our Volition counts for some- 
thing as a condition in the course of Events. (Lay Sermons, p. 159,— 1 
already quoted pp. 247 and 8 ante.) 

Evidently, to count for anything, Volition must produce effects ; i 
is, cause certain changes in the natural order of things. This principle, 
therefore, is clearly asserted by the Professor, — and its consequences 
follow by logical necessity, as here deduced. 

Mr. Huxley's idea of the Order of Nature is also coincident with the 
view of it taken in this Chapter. 

The present writer is glad to mark these undesigned coincidences of 
thought. " Lay Sermons " had not reached him when this Essay was 
sent to the Oxford Registrar. Neither had he seen the Professor's 
Article in the Fortnightly Review. 

Addition. — The doctrine in most complete antagonism with Mr. Huxley's 
position is described as follows by Dr. Carpenter : — 

''The most thorough-going expression of this doctrine will be found 



CAUSATION, 



371 



inexplicable, yet is practically true ; and we verify its truth by 
determinations of the deepest interest and importance to our 
individual selves. Sometimes, men almost stand aghast at the 
consequences of choosing obstinately ; and, through years of 
sorrow, accuse their own, and their friends' pertinacity. 

Possibly, the difficulty in theory may be in some degree 
softened by the admissions of physical philosophers, — inventors 
and craftsmen of all sorts, — respecting the considerable allow- 
ance to be made for " functioning" their abstract calculations. 
The necessity of such allowance distinctly proves, that, even 
in the most exact of applied sciences, pure theory and practical 
result do not commonly coincide. And, when we look to the 
concerns of human society, it must be confessed that no amount 
of sovereign power, insight of statesmen, or experience grounded 
on precedent or on knowledge of mankind, does away with the 
absolute necessity of allowing what is called a " margin " for 
the actual working of any law, scheme, contrivance, or political 
constitution. Speculative people are apt to find this truth 
verified to their cost and disappointment ; and, perhaps, one 
reason for the general success of English administrators in 
government and colonization, is their habit of making very 
large allowances throughout all the practical arrangements. In 
managing the world, they consider the non-calculable element 
of Will, — and allow for the way in which ifc breaks in, with 
sometimes tremendous effect, upon the otherwise regular 
current of affairs. 

But if this be true of the human Will, what ought to be said 

in the ' Letters of the Laws of Man's Nature and Development,' by Henry 
G. Atkinson and Harriet Martineau. A few extracts will suffice to show 
the character of this system of Philosophy. ' Instinct, passion, thought, 
etc., are effects of organized substances.' 'All causes are material causes.' 
1 In material conditions I find the origin of all religions, all philosophies, 
all opinions, all virtues, all " spiritual conditions and influences," in the 
same manner that I find the origin of all diseases and of all insanities in 
material conditions and causes. ' 'I am what I am; a creature of 
necessity ; I claim neither merit nor demerit.' ' I feel that I am as 
completely the result of my nature, and impelled to do what I do, as the 
needle to point to the north, or the puppet to move according as the 
string is pulled.' ' I cannot alter my will, or be other than what I am, 
and cannot deserve either reward or punishment. ' " Carpenter. Mental 
Physiology, p. 4. 



372 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



of the Divine? If we, with our limited power and under- 
standing, can thus interrupt many series of events in our world, 
what shall we say concerning the Volitional Cause of the whole 
Universe ? Concerning a Personality, which was before the 
chain of phenomenal antecedent and consequent began, and 
Which (as we have shewn must hold true of a First cause), 
actually willed the whole as a whole, and arranged the end 
from the beginning ? Recurring to our selected figure of the 
Alphabet, this primary Will, this incomprehensible Person is, 
in our view, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the 
End, and beside Him there is none other * 

So far, therefore, as a consideration of the world goes, and of 
mankind as existing in the world, arguments from analogy 
would lead to some positive expectation of Miracles. Our 
belief in the Uniformity of Nature does not exclude them ; 
and our practical experience gives rise to a probability of their 
occurrence. When, however, we lift up our eyes to the Divine 
Mind as Supreme Reason, Miracles appear to us inconceivable 
without an adequate occasion. For we ourselves strive to act 
on true, fitting, and reasonable grounds of purpose; and 
shall we think less of Him, " Who teacheth Man knowledge " ? 
But to pursue this last topic as it deserves, would carry us 
away from the domain of Natural Theology, and into that of 
Theology true and proper. 

Our business has lain with the Natural world, human nature 
itself included. And in examining the successional chain, we 
have perceived that it is not forged of Adamant. Yet there is 
so much connection and unity running throughout it, that we 
may with the greatest justice speak of the order and course of 
nature. And, perhaps the highest kind of evidence to the being 
and attributes of God conceivable by us, lies in the concurrence 
of two separate kinds of proof ; both resting on the reality of 
Divine causation viewed relatively to the World we inhabit. 
The one, — when we trace (as in this Chapter we have shewn 
that men ought to trace), the chain of natural sequence up to 

* Horace would have felt himself bewildered by some modern Philo- 
sophies. He says : — 

" Unde nil ma jus generatur ipso 

Nec viget quidquam simile aut secundum,'" 



CAUSATION. 



373 



a Personal First Cause. The other, — when we find reason to 
believe that the First Cause and Creator of the world, has seen 
fit to interfere with its orderly course in a manner which 
distinguishes His intervention from our common every-day 
experience. 

For such intervention, we could probably conceive no greater 
fitness, no nobler occasion, than the purpose of raising Men 
above themselves, and assuring them that there are more things 
in Heaven and Earth than are dreamed of in their Philoso- 
phies. And what human dream, vision, or philosophy, could 
ever have foreseen the things which God hath prepared for 
them that love Him ? 



CHAPTEE VII. 
RESPONSIBILITY. 



" The astronomers said, ' Give us matter, and a little motion, and we 
will construct the universe. It is not enough that we should have matter, 
we must also have a single impulse, one shove to launch the mass, and 
generate the harmony of the centrifugal and centripetal forces, Once 
heave the ball from the hand, and we can show how all this mighty order 
grew.' " — Emerson. Nature. 

" The essence of the Scandinavian, as indeed of all Pagan Mythologies, 
we found to be recognition of the divineness of Nature ; sincere com- 
munion of man with the mysterious invisible Powers visibly seen at work 
in the world round him .... Such recognition of Nature one finds to 
be the chief element of Paganism : recognition of Man, and his Moral 
Duty, though this too is not wanting, comes to be the chief element only 
in purer forms of religion. Here, indeed, is a great distinction and epoch 
in Human Beliefs ; a great landmark in the religious development of 
Mankind. Man first puts himself in relation with Nature and her 
Powers, wonders and worships over those ; not till a later epoch does 
he discern that all Power is Moral, that the grand point is the distinction 
for him of Good and Evil, of Thou shalt and Thou shalt not" — Carlyle. 
Heroes. 

"Our Religion is not yet a horrible restless Doubt, still less a far 
horribler composed Cant ; but a great heaven-high Unquestionability, 
encompassing, interpenetrating the whole of Life. Imperfect as we may 
be, we are here, to testify incessantly and indisputably to every heart, 
That this Earthly Life, and its riches and possessions, and good and evil 
hap, are not intrinsically a reality at all, but are a shadow of realities 
eternal, infinite ; that this Time-world, as an air-image, fearfully emble- 
matic, plays and flickers in the grand still mirror of Eternity ; and man's 
little Life has Duties that are great, that are alone great." — Carlyle. 
Past and Present. 

" Goodness and greatness are not means but ends. 
Hath he not always treasures, always friends, 
The good great man ? — Three treasures, life and light, 

And calm thoughts, regular as infant's breath ; 
And three firm friends, more sure than day and night — 
Himself, his Maker, and the Angel Death." 

S. T. Coleridge. 



" Omnia terrena 
Per vices sunt aliena : 
nescio sunt cuius ; 
mea nunc, eras huius et huius. 
Die, homo, quid speres, 
si mundo totus adheres ; 
nulla tecum feres, 
licet tu solus haberes." 

From " This World is false and vain," lines 41-48. 

' ' Threefold is the march of Time, 
The Future, lame and lingering, totters on ; 
Swift as a dart the Present hurries by ; 
The Past stands fixed in mute Eternity. 

" To urge his slow advancing pace 

Impatience nought avails, 
Nor fear, nor doubt, can check his race, 

As fleetly past he sails. 
No spell, no deep remorseful throes 
Can move him from his stern repose. 

" Mortal ! they bid thee read this rule sublime : 
Take for thy councillor the lingering one ; 
Make not the flying visitor thy friend, 
Nor choose thy foe in him that standeth without end." 

After Confucius, by Sir. J. Herschel. 

"The world that I regard is myself; it is the microcosm of mine own 
frame that I cast mine eye on ; for the other, I use it but like my globe, 
and turn it round sometimes for my recreation. Men that look upon my 
outside, perusing only my condition and fortunes, do err in my altitude ; 
for I am above Atlas his shoulders. The earth is a point not only in 
respect of the heavens above us, but of that heavenly and celestial part 
within us : that mass of flesh that circumscribes me, limits not my mind : 
that surface that tells the heavens it hath an end, cannot persuade me I 
have any : I take my circle to be above three hundred and sixty ; though 
the number of the arc do measure my body, it comprehendeth not my 
mind : whilst I study to find how I am a microcosm, or little world, I 
find myself something more than the great. There is surely a piece of 
divinity in us, something that was before the elements, and owes no 
homage unto the sun. " 

Sir T. Browne. Beligio Medici. 

l<tov 8k vvKTeacriv aid, 

'lea 8' ev dfxepais &\cou &xpvres airovicrTepov 
ecrXot 8e86pKavTL fHov> ov \Qbva Tapdcraovres tv 

X^pos &Kp.$ 



oiiSe ttovtlov vdcop 

Keivav irapa dlouTav dXXct rapa p.ei> tc/xlols 
deu>v, oiTLves ex^tpov evopKtais, abaKpvv vi- 

fjLOvraL 

alwva' . . . . 

'ivda puxKapuv 

vdcros d)K€auL8es 

atpac wepnrveoiSLu, dvdepia 8e xP vcr °v 0Ae7et, 
rd p:h x e p( r odev air' ay\au>i> dei'dptaiv, v8wp §' 
&Xka <pepj3ei 

6pp.0L(n tu>i> x^P as wa-TrXeKOVTL /ecu /ce0a\ds. 

Pindar. Olymp. II. 

"Stern Daughter of the Voice of God ! 
O Duty ! if that name thou love 
Who art a Light to guide, a Rod 
To check the erring, and reprove ; 
Thou who art victory and law 
When empty terrors overawe ; 
From vain temptations dost set free ; 
From strife and from despair ; a glorious ministry. 



" I, loving freedom, and untried ; 
No sport of every random gust, 
Yet being to myself a guide, 
Too blindly have reposed my trust : 
Resolved that nothing e'er should press 
Upon my present happiness, 
I shoved unwelcome tasks away ; 
But thee I now would serve more strictly, if I may. 

"Through no disturbance of my soul, 
Or strong compunction in me wrought, 
I supplicate for thy controul ; 
But in the quietness of thought : 
Me this uncharter'd freedom tires ; 
I feel the weight of chance desires : 
My hopes no more must change their name, 
I long for a repose which ever is the same. 

" Yet not the less would I throughout 
Still act according to the voice 
Of my own wish ; and feel past doubt 
That my submissiveness was choice : 



Not seeking in the school of pride 
For 'precepts over dignified/ 
Denial and restraint I prize 

No farther than they breed a second Will more wise. 

( ' Stern Lawgiver ! yet thou dost wear 
The Godhead's most benignant grace : 
Nor know we anything so fair 
As is the smile upon thy face ; 
Flowers laugh before thee on their beds ; 
And Fragrance in thy footing treads ; 
Thou dost preserve the Stars from wrong ; 
And the most ancient Heavens through Thee are fresh 
and strong. 

" To humbler functions, awful Power ! 
I call thee : I myself commend 
Unto thy guidance from this hour ; 
Oh ! let my weakness have an end ! 
Give unto me, made lowly wise, 
The spirit of self-sacrifice ; 
The confidence of reason give ; 

And in the light of truth thy Bondman let me live ! " 

Wordsworth. Poems, 1807. 



SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER VII. 



The object of this Chapter is to shew that the universally enforced 
maxim of Responsibility unites in itself two factors . 

(1.) A true power of Causation, as explained in Chapter VI. 
(2.) A moral distinction of Right and Wrong. 

This second element of Responsibility is next investigated, and the Moral 
antithesis shewn to be inalienable. Right can never be Wrong, nor 
Wrong ever Right. Justice must certainly prevail at last. 

From the connection of Morality with Causation, it may be inferred that 
the moral Law has its ultimate existence in a Supreme Personality — 
a just and sovereign God. This conclusion is verified. Human life 
and Human death read us the same lesson. 

Corollary. — If the conclusion just drawn be accepted, and to know God 
be Life Eternal, we may also infer an a priori probability of some 
Supernatural assistances, intended to strengthen our human weak- 
nesses and diminish our ignorance. This latter purpose would seem 
likely to include a better aid to happiness, and a more complete code 
of Moral Maxims. 

Analysis. — As a social fact, Responsibility is universal, and accounted 
inalienable by any individual man. Responsibility involves Causa- 
tion in the highest sense, together with Moral Sensibility. 

Attempts to refine away ethical Rightness. An appeal to consciousness 
proposed : — Distinctness of moral feeling ; — and its Permanence. 
Antithesis of Right and Wrong an irreconcileable Antagonism. 
Contrasted with correlation of Power and Function ; this antithesis 
never fluent, but rigorous/' immutable, imperishable, absolute. Ulti- 
mate coincidence of Happiness with Virtue is a necessary result 
of Independent Morality. 

Moral Law exists conceivably in and by a Will alone ; as — 

1. Its cause and spring of movement. 

2. Its source of expression and practical authority. 

Being supreme, it exists in and by a Supreme Moral Will or Per- 
sonality. That is to say, in and by God. 
This conception verified. World inexplicable without Man. Man inex- 
plicable without God ; Whom to know is Life Eternal. 



SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER VII. 



381 



Corollary. — Supernatural assistance apparently to be expected when 
Moral Law is viewed as a human endowment proceeding from God. 
Thus Man is made for God, and God has not made Man in vain. 

Confirmation from — 

1. Image of Divine Love in Nature. 

2. Nature of religious Trust as a Belief of Reason. 

3. Incompleteness of our ethical knowledge apart from such assist- 

ance. 

4. Universal expectation of Mankind. 

U Envoy. 



CHAPTER VII. 



RESPONSIBILITY. 

Responsibility is the most serious fact of our whole human 
world. The affairs of life could not go on for a single day it 
there were no Responsibility. We never release any man 
from its burden, without incapacitating him, at the same 
time, alike from business and from enjoyment. We lay it 
upon childhood, as soon as the child is able to reflect upon 
his own actions and to choose deliberately ; — we do not take 
it away from a collected and self-controlled age. And every 
reasonable Man who stands by an open grave, or knows that 
he is rapidly approaching his own, feels, (above all other 
pressures,) the unending prospect of Responsibility. Looking 
at this prospect, we look into our deepest solitude ; — 

" Since all alone, so Heaven has willed, we die." 

None of our fellows, the dear companions of our Soul, can 
carry our burden then. And though they walk by our side in 
life, and cheer us with their love, they cannot really bear that 
burden noiv. And, thus, in the most serious and solemn fact 
of our existence, we are always isolated and alone. 

But Responsibility is something better to every one of us 
than a burden ; — it is also an incalculable benefit. A man 
who has no true sense of responsibility, is an unformed human 
being ; — and, in proportion as we feel it inwardly, and express 
the feeling by consideration and self-control, we make progress 
in real manliness. On this account, Responsibility may be 
pronounced our chief aid in the formation of a manly cha- 
racter. And, probably, among all the sources of human 
happiness, none yields a more unbroken serenity, than the 
habitual consciousness of being enabled to act up to the single 
mark of our responsibilities. 



384 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



When a man has attained such practical wisdom, it "maketh 
his face to shine." His daily endeavour to do right, instead of 
causing him anxiety and disquietude, gives a buoyancy to the 
spirit ; which shows itself in a peculiar brightness of counte- 
nance, unlike every other cheerful glance and aspect. The 
beaming faces, with which early Italian artists painted their 
good men and saintly women, are excellent illustrations of this 
expressional beauty. 

Let us consider, through one chapter more, what Natural 
Theology has to say upon this subject. 

Responsibility has been shewn to involve, as one of its con- 
stituent principles, an idea of Causation. It is, also, clear 
that to hold a man responsible, he must be supposed to possess 
some power of distinguishing Right from Wrong. In our last 
chapter, we drew from the principle of Causation certain con- 
clusions regarding the Universal First Cause. We have now 
to examine the principle of Moral Sensibility. 

Every one at all acquainted with modern controversy, is 
aware that few questions have been more keenly mooted, than 
the origin of moral distinctions among mankind. The debate 
respecting them has run, for a great part of its course, parallel 
with that on the origin of our primary intellectual beliefs, 
alluded to in a former chapter. Neither of these controversies 
concerns us beyond a certain point. Our business lies with the 
facts of human nature, rather than with theories concerning 
any supposed possibilities as to their growth and accretion. 
But, one caution we suggested respecting the case of intellect, 
holds good and is important to every moral inquirer. Let the 
analyst beware of his alembic ! There is nothing more easy 
than to vaporize reality altogether, by way of exalting a 
philosophy* And in Morality, the result is far worse than 

* Every reader of Ben Jonson must recal the Alchemical process of 
" Exaltation " :— 

" Son, be not hasty, I exalt our med'cine, 
By hanging him in balneo vaporoso, 
And giving him solution ; then congeal him ; 
And then dissolve him ; then again congeal him." 

The Alchemist, Act II. Scene i. 

But who would wish the congelation of our Moral sense ? If indeed it 
could possibly survive the rest of the process. 

Reading these lines, can any one wonder at the celebrated chemical 



RESPONSIBILITY. 



386 



in speculation. The distinctive character of our Moral Con- 
sciousness is the " essence " which lends to a right action its 
peculiar fragrance and beauty. Invaluable per se, it will 
surely be found of a nature so delicate and fugitive as to 
escape the tests of analytic psychologists. Yet when this is 
fled, the residuum must be worthless to Moral philosophy. 

The " essence " just mentioned, merits a few minutes' atten- 
tion. Men have been known to assert that their feeling of 
appreciation in respect of a very lovely woman, was precisely 
similar to their appreciation of a handsome horse. No doubt, 
the right answer is to tell such a man that he is utterly blind 
to the true loveliness of woman ; and does not deserve to call 
a creature so excellent, his wife. You may, also, point out to 
him the various distinctive characters of female excellence, — 
refinement, purity, depth of feeling, self devotion, the noblest 
heroism, and so on. But if the man has put all his perceptions 
of diverse excellences into a private alembic, and sublimated 
them into one of the lowest among esthetic susceptibilities ; 
no argument will really convince him. The truly bright 
aesthetic eye — the grander imaginative powers are wanting, — 
the man is mentally colour-blind. 

The same truth holds good of theorists who tell us dog- 
matically that our Moral Sensibility is nothing better than an 
accretion of baser materials which may be stripped off from 
each other in the reverse order of their growth, just like the 
coats of a stalactite or a tulip-root. As may readily be sur- 
mised, there is great difference of dogma, when judgment 
comes to be pronounced on the moral core and centre of the 
whole. Some are for the needs of society, — some utility in 
general, — the greater part for individual advantage. Others 
take theoretically polar directions ; and with them, rightness 
consists either in quietism, or else in self-immolation. Self- 
approving feelings, (each advocate tells us,) have clustered 
round his pet growing point ; and the clustering has endowed 
us with all the moral sense we happen to possess. Here again, 
it is doubtful whether a right answer will convince the ex- 
perimentalist, bent on turning lead into gold. Yet whether 

analysis of bygone days, which ended in discovering an undetermined re- 
siduum of dirt ? 

25 



386 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



convincing or not, most honest hearts would prompt an in- 
dignant rejoinder. The world at large, however, is likely to 
prove a more successful arbiter. The utilitarian will find that 
he excites little sympathy even when general utility forms his 
moral kernel ; — and, when it is no more than a personal gain 
of worldly advantages, he will not improbably be called a 
rascal. Then " Quietism " can never hope much favour in the 
busy workshop of the West. Though it may seem strange to 
some minds, self-immolation has by far the greatest chance of 
winning suffrages ; one chief reason being, that the man who 
sacrifices his own private advantage, has evidently spurned 
expediency and selfishness. Even those who think his 
theoretical views erroneous — and possibly mischievous, will 
applaud his victory over the meaner passions. 

Each hour of thought the reader can bestow on moral dis- 
tinctions, will turn to certain good. At the very least, it must 
help to form a habit of self-examination. And for this purpose, 
very simple interrogatories bring out very useful responses. 
If the reader be a rose grower, let him inquire into his own 
feelings, when he plucks the fairest flower in his garden, to 
give fragrance and colour to the sick room of a poor but 
sensitive little invalid. He will certainly perceive a wide 
interval between his pleasure in admiring the glowing rose, 
and his pleasure in adding to the scanty luxuries of the 
poor sick child. Thus, although a benevolent action be a truly 
beautiful thing, yet there is a difference between the rose 
grower's impressions of mere beauty, and of pure benevolence. 
A difference too between his enjoyment of beauty, and his 
enjoyment in benevolently resigning to another, the object 
which charmed him because it was beautiful. Time, also, 
makes a vast difference between the two emotions. We 
cannot recal a delicious odour, as truly as we can reproduce 
a pretty sight before our retrovertive eye. The image ot 
the rose remains, after its sweet fragrance has departed. But 
much, much longer than either, remains the moral impression 
graved upon the mind. That little pleasure enjoyed in a brief 
self-denial, will repeat itself through half a century of years. 

Permanence is, indeed, one characteristic which demonstrates 
the paramount excellence of all moral impressions. It is so 



RESP ONSIBILITY. 



387 



difficult to repeat to ourselves the sensation of physical pleasure 
or physical pain, that many writers on pathologic topics speak 
of it as a thing impossible. Certainly, its greatest vividness is 
in dreams ; and above all, " segri somnia "— sick visions — seem 
to possess the strongest reproductive power. It is curious, 
however, to observe the manner in which dreams themselves 
put on a moral meaning. Who does not remember Sir W. 
Scott's lines in the " Lady of the Lake," on the returning 
phantoms of early youth, — change, loss, and separation ? But 
those phantoms are pale shadows, compared with what we 
have all felt in our visionary hours, — the consciousness of our 
own absolute loneliness, — of our death, — of a hopeless, endless 
isolation. Even the very thought' of our spiritual life,* as 
distinguished from mere corporeal life, is terrible to us and 
hardly to be borne. So overwhelming is the idea of the 
demand of Justice upon each of us; — the law of human 
Responsibility. 

It is remarkable, too, that the most common-sense practical 
people sometimes feel these impressions the most acutely. One 
reason may arise from the circumstance, that the spiritually 
imaginative temperament of such persons is vigorous, — has 
few occasions of employment; and throws its unexhausted 
force into those strong " Michel- Angelesque " realizations. 

Whatever may be thought on this point, there is no truth 
of our whole Manhood more striking, as well as more evident, 
than the independent vitality of our Moral Consciousness. 
Let us suppose, for example's sake, that the reader was once 
unhappy enough to injure a neighbour, a friend, or relation. 
Let the injury be something which you in your heart know 
to be truly injurious ; — a thing impossible in your better 
moments, — but still a thing done. Now, let years elapse, and 
when the thought recurs and the deed is reacted, you feel how 
wrongful it was. And when you grow old, and there are few 
left to love you, the feeling will become far more deep. Put 
oceans, continents, tropics, between yourself and your injured 
one; the reality is not at all less real. The same stars no 
longer look down upon you by night, — the sun does not bring 
back the same seasons at the same time, — but your act is 

* Compare Job iv. 13, seq. 



388 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY, 



Timeless; — and, though night and day vary, its criminality 
remains the same. And worst of all, — the injured one may die, 
whilst no act of reparation may have been performed by 
you, — no word of love or ruth escaped your lips. The deed is 
irremediable, and you are the doer of it. Neither Space nor 
Duration of years can alter the fact. There is a moral mark 
set upon your conscience ; and no human sympathy can heal, 
nor even alleviate the sorrow. Most likely, you never attempt 
to explain to others the pain you feel, because were the case 
another's you would hardly comprehend it yourself. Thousands 
have gone to the grave, carrying heavy burdens of this kind 
almost or altogether unsuspected. 

Exemption from the laws of Time and Space, is perhaps the 
most wonderful characteristic of our Moral Consciousness. 
With this solitary exception, we seem to find ourselves in per- 
petual subjection to those laws. But in the realm of Morals it 
is the reverse. The endless theoretical contradictions about the 
Finite and the Infinite, (to which we have more than once 
alluded,) bear witness to this fact. Morality at once puts the 
two together • — what in its sphere of commission was a finite 
crime, is likewise an infinite immorality. We count up our 
faults as sins ; but, when viewed awhile in the light of con- 
science, they are most burdensome to us as being, not sins, but 
Sin. Look at the pre-Christian Eumenides ; the last writing 
of St. John the Evangelist ; the confessions of Augustine ; 
and the life of John Bunyan ; to which we might add more 
than one great Oxford life ; — and, through them all, the pro- 
found sense of Sin underlies every other utterance. 

Another salient character of the moral sense, actually exist- 
ing among mankind, may be outlined as follows. We have 
already considered the manner in which laws appear to human 
intelligence, as types, ideas, or relations. Amongst them, we 
paid particular attention to the relativity between Power 
and Function. And, when viewing these as polar opposites, 
with a chain or nexus between them, we saw that the 
opposition was, in a certain sense, fluent. Function changed 
into Power more than once, before each complex process of 
production became entirely accomplished. Power, in accom- 
plishing its errand, continually was lost, and vanished away in 



RESP ONSIBILITY. 



389 



Function. But between Right and Wrong, the opposition is 
fixed, contradictory, and enduring. Any Logic or Rhetoric 
which attempts to make the antithesis appear fluent, is justly 
condemned as special pleading, and the art of an oratorical 
Sophist. The only question asked of the Sophistical speaker, 
is whether the error he tries to excuse was wilful, or un- 
intentional; whether it was a mistake, or a confusion of 
distinctly-opposed moral dictates. So Demosthenes says to 
CEschines, " Among all other men I observe these principles and 
these distinctions to prevail. Does any one wilfully do wrong ? 
He is the object of indignation and of punishment. Does any 
one commit an error unintentionally ? He is pardoned, not 

punished All this is established not only in all our 

jurisprudence, but by Nature herself in her unwritten laws, 
and in the very constitution of the human mind." * 

And we may all feel quite sure that this is the normal 
decision of Mankind. 

Right and Wrong stand out as irreconcileable antagonists, 
contending for the empire of the world. A man who watches 
the strife without deep interest, and never mingles in the fray 
because he thinks its issue immaterial, is no better than a 
Pessimist. 

Compare a Duty with a Function, (in the wide sense we 
assigned to the latter conception,) and two points will at once 
be evident. First, how strong the contrast, how wide the 
interval, between the Law of productive work, and the law 
of moral activity. Secondly, how inextinguishable the con- 
tradiction between Right and Wrong. One man undertakes 
some mechanical utilitarian function, dependent on the pleasure 
or life of a superior ; to whom he is in no other respect bound, 
nor in any way accountable. Another is a husband, a father, or 
a son. The object of his natural affection, is also the being to 
whom his tender offices of devotion are morally due. For 
different reasons, the daily lives of both these men have 
become first irksome, — then, very wearisome, — finally, almost 
odious to themselves. The man of routine goes to visit his 
ailing superior, and is permitted to enter the sick room. He 

* De Corona. Sect. 274. The translation in the text is Lord 
Brougham's,, and his note on this passage is worth perusal. Trans, p. 185. 



390 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



undraws a curtain and looks upon the face of a dead man. 
Between the departed and himself, there existed no natural 
love, nor any acquired hate, neither duty nor demand. The 
link was simply official, and it is broken. Next month, there 
will be a new Superior who knows not Joseph. Another 
subordinate will occupy the post of routine ; and, under the 
circumstances, to be released from the old toil is a sort of 
happiness. The tedious function of the past is over ; and 
he carries his powers into a more hopeful employment. Yet 
Man is always something to Man, if both are genuine ; and 
there arise a thousand regretful memories, and thoughts of 
kindly interchange of gestures, looks, • and words. After a 
time, the last change of all is thought of as a thing to be 
deplored, but gone by, — a thing simply irremediable. 

But how different, when the man who has been morally 
bound — say the son — sees a dead face upturned from his 
father's pillow ! Here is another link of service broken ; 
— service of another kind, — a duty. It is gone, the sick bed 
attendance, the harass, the vexation, endured with a recalci- 
trant feeling, and sometimes an openly determined opposition. 
And how much is gone besides ! The feeling of resistance 
vanishes, when there is no longer a Will to be resisted ; the 
harass and vexation appear unwholesome phantoms. To look 
on the life of a father or a near friend, after death, is like 
looking on a moonlighted landscape ; its harsher features 
are lost in lengthening shadow ; all that we thought rugged 
and stern, appears subdued and blended with a thousand 
fondly-remembered softnesses. A mild and silvery radiance 
flows over the whole familiar scene ; — we gaze and sigh, — and 
sigh and gaze again. To think of its becoming veiled from 
our eyes, seems like losing a portion of our own existence. 

And what more is gone besides ? The son's thought, which 
used to mingle so strangely with his feelings of distaste, — that, 
some day, he would fill up the measure of that which was con- 
sciously lacking in his filial duty and devotion. He has now 
no power of offering sorrow to obtain the remission of claims 
unsatisfied, no possibility of saying, " Father, I have sinned " ! 
He would die by inches, if, with each slow degree of mortality 
he could revoke a short period of the Past 



B£SP ONSIBILITY. 



391 



In other concerns of life all beyond human cure is also 
beyond human care ; but this concern is a matter of Right and 
Wrong. To say the Wrong is irremediable, is to utter the 
sharpest cry of Remorse, — the last word of a long Despair. 

It is always thus, when the moral rule intervenes. It is so, 
when an injured friend dies, — the injurer is fast bound by the 
crime he has committed. It is so, when the Son thinks he has 
to face things undone which ought to have been done, — the 
opportunity of doing them now lost for ever. Inability to 
remedy a wrong makes our sorrow inextinguishable. And we 
know by experience, that such a sorrow is unlike every other 
sorrow. It differs in kind from all trains of ordinary feeling, 
and seems to belong less to our emotional life than to be a 
dictate of our sovereign reason. And the moral rule is so. In 
the eye of Practical Reason which (so far as human nature 
goes), constitutes our supreme guide, a claim of Morality is 
absolutely rigorous — absolutely supreme — and if unsatisfied, 
absolutely inexorable. 

To suppose anything less, would be to annihilate the whole 
moral law. For, how can you, or I, or any one, be required 
to immolate our life, freedom, fortune, or even our ordinary 
enjoyments, unless the rule be perfectly unyielding • perfectly 
unchangeable ? To be binding now, — it must be binding under 
all circumstances, and binding always. If a single claim 
remain unsatisfied the admission is fatal. Broken once, the 
law is broken everlastingly. Every man .might conceive that 
his own case was, possibly, just one marked for exception. 
Who, then, would sacrifice at the altar of Right-doing all 
earthly goods ; undergo chains, ignominy, dungeon-solitude, 
pain, lingering hopelessness, and death ? Who, then, would be 
able to stand by, and see all these inflictions undergone by one 
he loves best, when compliance with wrong-doing would surely 
set the sufferer free ? It is the certainty of an equal and 
unrelenting law, which makes all kinds of endurance possible. 

If no other reason existed, this one would suffice to prove 
that, unless human nature is a falsehood, happiness must 
ultimately coincide with virtue. How distantly removed their 
final coincidence may be, is a point which can have no influence 
on the certitude of our knowledge. We speak here, as we 



392 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



speak of parallel lines which cannot meet through infinity ; — 
only we speak the reverse way; — it is for all infinity that 
virtue must become happiness. If a man will seriously sit 
down, and try the contrary hypothesis out to himself, he will 
see that if held true, Morality ceases to be imperial, and Man 
ceases to be human. The claim of Right is to rule the 
Universe, entire, and in every part. Before that claim, all 
knowledge, scientific, phenomenal, inferential, must fail and 
vanish away. Whatever else be true or untrue, this must be 
rigorous, unalterable, imperishable truth. Upon this truth, 
each reasonable being, percipient of it, is required to act in 
his own individual person. Therefore, in the case of each 
individual it must hold absolutely true. And thus the moral 
endowment of Man is not a general sense of Morality ; no 
indeterminate impulse towards excellence floating before him ; 
no mere thought that past generations were made for us, and 
we for a coming race. What we really know and acknow- 
ledge as moral truth, is each Man's strict accountability, 
individual, isolated, and inalienable. Otherwise, individual 
rightness cannot be demanded, and individual suffering for 
conscience-sake must become, in some eyes Utopian, — to most 
sufferers intolerable. The moral law is therefore supreme, or 
it would be ineffectual. It is individually specializing, other- 
wise it could not claim individual obedience. And to be 
supreme, both in final effect and present empire over each 
human being, it must obviously be — (as our practical Reason 
apprehends it) — Universal. To such a sovereignty there is 
nothing great, nothing small. Time sets no bounds, while 
Reason beholds in it the ultimate perfection and sum of all 
that went before it. 

Towards that complete coincidence of happiness with virtue, 
the aspiration of good and the sighs of sorrowful souls, have 
been breathed continually. In its realization alone, can our 
noblest capabilities be realized. For, there is nothing in this 
world commensurate with the capacious longings of the 
human spirit. Here, too often, it droops like a beautiful 
plant in a strange unkindly soil; and, when it blooms its 
brightest, we feel that under other influences it might bloom 
more brightly still. True humanity is marked by its own 



RESP ONSIBILITY. 



393 



specific character, as the fit inhabitant of a far more excellent 
sphere. 

We ask with some eagerness, how may these things be? 
And the primary answer to this question lies within the 
circuit of our knowledge. Our own consciousness, the facts 
of life, and the reason of the thing, all agree in one result. 
Moral law exists only in, and for, a Will ; and by a Will alone 
can it be made effectual. In this respect, it resembles the 
Law of Production, which, apprehended ideally by intelligence, 
becomes realized by the moving force of Will. Moreover, we 
have seen that Will is true Causation, and therefore in Will 
exists the first ground of Movement. We know in fact of 
no other. Neither is any other Causality conceivable by us, 
even in hypothesis; and we think this causative power of 
Will only by knowing its real existence and verifying its 
workings through their issues. 

Yet further. The Moral Law, as a sovereign command, is 
addressed to our Wills ; and unless it were the Expression of 
a Will, we know it could never be executed. The Law would 
remain a dead letter, — a thought of Intelligence, — an abstract 
speculation, — ineffective because impractical. Therefore, when 
we speak of a Supreme Moral law, we speak of a Supreme 
Moral Will; an idea we sometimes express by true Being, 
or true Personality. We speak, that is, of God. 

Experience deepens to us every day the meaning of this 
final word. In the world of our present habitation, we see a 
confused mass of striving Wills, — the good and just not always 
in the ascendant, — rightful commands disregarded, — a sovereign 
rule not visibly asserted. To affirrn the possible continuance of 
these practical contradictions, would be to deny the ultimate 
Moral Unity of moral purposes. This Divine consummation 
is, then, the finality towards which all things must in reason 
be tending. For even as human nature explains all other 
nature, — as the Moral Law explains all other law, — so God 
explains Man. Explains his existence, otherwise inexplicable, 
by the anticipated victory of Eight over Wrong, — and the 
complete satisfaction of his unsatisfied aspirations. By pre- 
senting, that is to say, an adequate object, — a Personality 
infinitely great and infinitely good, — to the eye of Man's 



394 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY, 



reason, — the desire of his heart, — the striving endeavour, and 
ceaseless energy of Man's whole essential being ; — his affections, 
his will, his spirit. 

This elevating thought comes home to each one of us, bringing 
with it a peace of mind unutterable. We know that the time 
must come, when thought and memory shall grow faint. Our 
brain will lose its quick apprehensive motion, and all our 
bodily powers must sink and languish. Our eyes will refuse 
to see the faces of those we love ; our hands to return their 
kindly pressure; our nerves to thrill at their voices. But, 
whosoever has learnt the lesson which God's world, and God's 
gifts to Man, were meant to teach him, may truthfully say — 
" My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my 
heart, and my portion for Ever." 

Corollary. — One reflection will probably have occurred to 
every reader of the last few pages. The rigour of the moral 
law demonstrates to us the necessary existence of a future 
state of recompense, and the supremac}^ of a sovereign Will — 
a divine Judge. Now, does not this very rigour leave man as 
hopeless, as if he were altogether without God ? Can he ever 
expect to perform the behests of that pure and perfect Will ? 
This difficulty would appear valid, were there nothing in the 
idea of God thus given us, to furnish rejoinders, such for ex- 
ample, as the following. — How could the Supreme Judge make 
any difference between those who are His anxious servants, 
and those who turn away from His infinite purity with hatred 
or indifference, if all men were alike overwhelmed in one com- 
mon failure by reason of an inexorable law? How, again, 
could He satisfy the aspirations of earnest but half-hopeless 
human souls, without gathering them to His presence and to 
Himself ? The manner in which such a happiness results to 
men, may be an enigma, so far as Natural Theology is con- 
cerned ; — but if so, it is an enigma, of which, those who reason 
on this ground, may foresee that there will certainly be granted 
some solution. And we are not left quite in the dark as to 
how that solution may be found ; — a truth we may perceive 
from the ensuing considerations : — 



RZSP ONSIBILITY. 



395 



The moral law is presented to Man's practical reason with 
all its consequences. The divine Idea, when once apprehended, 
becomes the object of Man's noblest affections. God, Who 
graved His law of Right and Wrong upon the conscious will 
of His creature, wrote also a law of love upon His creature's 
human heart. 

Hence we view the Supreme Being, as a God who formed 
and endowed Man for Himself. It was thus, that Man's nature 
received its only possible explanation. Hence, also, the suf- 
ficient acconut of a capacity for happiness which this world 
can never give ; — and, along with it, the earnest of its ultimate 
satisfaction. 

But these evidences of the Divine finger, prove also a Divine 
intention. The supreme ruler of the Universe has, by them, 
written upon Man s nature a purpose of making His creature 
happy. And if so, we cannot but conclude that to the Divine 
attribute of love, which inspired the glad promise, we may 
look for its certain fulfilment. In this point of view, a miracle 
worked for such a moral and spiritual purpose as the ennoble- 
ment and blessedness of Humanity, ceases in one sense to be 
a miracle. It becomes not only credible, but probable. And 
in reality, any event appears less improbable than that in- 
credible and most unlovely issue, — the self-contradictory 
thought, that God has made Man in vain. 

These considerations are drawn from our Moral nature, as 
just described. There are other considerations at hand to 
confirm them. 

In treating the subject of Production, we saw Intelligence 
involved in every Idea, and preceding every process. When 
referred to the Universe, Intelligence was necessarily conceived 
as vast and immeasurable. In order to discern the other 
attributes of that universal Intelligence, we examined the 
characteristics of Design apparent in nature, and saw every- 
where a spirit of super-human tenderness breathed over our 
beautiful world. Thus, if there be any personal relation 
between the Author of Nature and our race, it ought to be 
one of trust on our side, demanded by care and beneficence on 
His. And this feeling is heightened by the charm of lavish 
kindness, — the prodigality of a love Divine. 



396 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



Again, if we turn to one chapter of this Essay farther back, 
and bring to mind the rise and progress of our primary beliefs, 
we cannot but ask ourselves the question, how is it that the 
first religious idea of the Aryan race — the " Heaven-father " 
— should coincide with the most typical utterances of our 
loveliest childhood, and our most advanced manhood, now 1 — 
Is He really our Father ? If so, may we not expect much 
from His hand ? He is a Person, not an Abstract Entity, — 
a Force, — or a Thing. Our Father will give us, not a stone — 
but bread;— bread from Heaven — bread from Himself. And 
we see that He giveth liberally, and upbraideth not. 

This is not all. The rigour of the Moral Law is an irrecon- 
cileable Antithesis between Right and Wrong, — a gulf which 
no human subtlety can bridge. But with all this rigour, it 
leaves unresolved, to a very considerable extent, one set of 
doubts perpetually recurring to an honest mind. Is this or 
that particular point a duty ; — is it right or wrong ; — or is its 
observance open to debate ? There are obvious reasons, arising 
from the necessities of moral culture and improvement, why 
such points should, within certain limits, be indeterminate. 
This whole topic, however, belongs properly to Natural Re- 
ligion, a separate subject from Natural Theology. Still, for our 
present purpose, an important consequence of the inexactness 
is clear. — It gives rise to a reasonable expectation of some 
more extensive code not unlikely to be vouchsafed us, har- 
monizing with, and supplementary to, the law of our moral 
consciousness. And at every age of Man's history, and through- 
out every country of his habitation, there always did, in 
fact, prevail an expectant attitude of mind, looking on all sides 
for the tokens of Divine Revelation. It was felt also by the 
wisest, that no human foresight could decide beforehand, 
what aids to higher knowledge and moral virtue might be 
given along with it. Certainly, every reasonable idea of the 
great and good God, formed a ground for hope and confident 
anticipation of the Highest and the Best. 



This Essay has reached its close. May it be permitted its 



BESP ONSIBILITY. 



397 



writer to drop the tone of an Essayist, and to say that every 
word of it has come from his heart ? 

May he likewise ask two favours of the intelligent reader ; 
neither of them he trusts unreasonably onerous ? 

His first request is that the convergent effect of the separate 
considerations urged in this Essay, may be fairly taken into 
account. Indeed, the writer once thought of appending a 
kind of conspectus or "summing up." — But he would thus 
have added another full chapter to a book which has grown 
considerably in his hands. Neither might the summary be 
altogether welcome to the more candid minds amongst those 
who doubt, yet honestly debate. Most such readers prefer 
putting results and consilient reasonings into a connected 
shape for themselves. The writer may however venture on 
soliciting some special attention to the breadth of field ranged 
over; — the wide circumference from which his various argu- 
ments and illustrations have converged. This point is one of 
considerable value. Great credit is given to the accordant 
testimony of witnesses who have come together from distant 
parts of the world. 

The other favour requested, is that every person who desires 
to form a deliberate judgment on the grand topics at issue, 
will carefully weigh in the balance what alternative he can 
embrace, if he refuses to be a Theist. An alternative, that is ; 
sufficient to account for the human Will and Reason, for such 
a world as our own, and for so symmetrical and beautiful a 
Universe. 

The system we have advocated on grounds of Reason, asserts 
that the first Cause of all Things and all Beings known to 
us, is God. This account alone is sufficingly complete, and 
coherent. Against it alone, no fatal objection has ever been 
alleged. And this single fact ought to have a preponderating 
weight in the balance. 

When finally compared together, the motives of our Choice 
(as presented by Natural Theology), stand thus : — 

If explanations of tha Universe explain unequally, that 
account ought to be chosen which is easiest in itself, explains 
the most, and is the least self- contradictory, 



398 THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 

If several explanations appear equal to the deliberative eye, 
then we must choose the noblest "per se; and, as Men, we 
ought to prefer that which is the most elevating, and most 
germane to Humanity. In it, will be contained the only true 
Law of human Progress. 

Either motive of our final Choice — still more, both these 
motives — will bring us to God; and with reason — "For we are 
also His offspring." 



THE END. 



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